Sentencing Bill

Lord Timpson Excerpts

Consideration of Commons amendments and / or reasons
Wednesday 21st January 2026 Lords Chamber

Moved by

[Lord Timpson]

That this House do not insist on its Amendment 7 and do agree with the Commons in their Amendments 7A and 7B in lieu.

7A: Page 37, line 5, at end insert the following new Clause—
“Provision of transcripts of sentencing remarks to victims
(1) Subsection (2) applies if a victim (“V”) requests the Secretary of State to supply V with a transcript of sentencing remarks that are relevant to V.
(2) The Secretary of State must supply the transcript to V, or arrange for the transcript to be supplied to V—
(a) free of charge, and
(b) before the end of the period specified in regulations made by the Secretary of State.
This is subject to regulations under subsection (3) and Criminal Procedure Rules under subsection (5).
(3) The Secretary of State may by regulations—
(a) make provision about how a request under subsection (1) is to be made;
(b) make provision about the information to be provided in making such a request;
(c) provide for exceptions to the requirement in subsection (2) to supply a transcript of sentencing remarks;
(d) provide that, in circumstances specified in the regulations, a transcript must be provided with the omission of information so specified;
(e) make further provision about the supply of a transcript under subsection (2).
(4) Regulations under subsection (3) may, in particular—
(a) confer a function (including the exercise of a discretion) on the Secretary of State or another person or description of person;
(b) make provision which refers to Criminal Procedure Rules (including as amended or replaced from time to time).
(5) Criminal Procedure Rules may make provision about the supply of a transcript under subsection (2) (including any provision that may be made by regulations under subsection (3) or by virtue of subsection (4)(a)).
(6) A power to make regulations under this section includes power to make—
(a) supplementary, incidental, transitional or saving provision;
(b) different provision for different purposes.
(7) Regulations under this section are to be made by statutory instrument.
(8) The Secretary of State must consult the Lord Chief Justice before making regulations under this section.
(9) A statutory instrument containing regulations under this section may not be made unless a draft of the instrument has been laid before and approved by a resolution of each House of Parliament.
(10) In this section—
“sentencing remarks” means remarks made by a judge of the Crown Court in England and Wales when sentencing an offender for an offence;
“victim” has the meaning given by regulations made by the Secretary of State.
(11) The Secretary of State may by regulations make provision about the circumstances in which, for the purposes of this section, sentencing remarks are relevant to a victim.”

7B: Clause 46, page 76, line 36, after “regulations” insert “, rules”

[The Minister of State, Ministry of Justice (Lord Timpson) (Lab)]

My Lords, it is a pleasure to see the Sentencing Bill return to your Lordships’ House for, I hope, the final time. Subject to your Lordships’ agreement, the Bill will have completed all its stages and will shortly become law. That moment will be hugely significant for our prison and probation services. It will put them on a sustainable footing and deliver punishment that works. I am very proud of having played my part in taking the Bill through Parliament. Apart from a brief Bill on the Sentencing Council, this is my first experience of getting a Bill through, and I have been struck by the fantastic teamwork from everyone involved.

I will briefly set out the Government’s rationale for disagreeing with Amendment 7 and tabling our own amendments in lieu. Before I do so, I thank again the noble and learned Lord, Lord Keen of Elie, and the noble Lord, Lord Marks. In keeping with their approach throughout the passage of the Bill, they have engaged constructively and openly. Once again, their interventions have made this a better Bill.

The Government fully supported the intention of Amendment 7: to promote transparency in the courts and improve the experience of victims as they navigate the justice system. We could not accept it as drafted due to the risk that it would significantly increase judicial workload at a time when courts are working intensively to drive down the court backlog. However, I am delighted that we have tabled an amendment in lieu, which expands the provision of Crown Court sentencing transcripts, free of charge, to all victims who request them. This new clause represents an important step forward for victims, ensuring that they are able to request and receive relevant sentencing remarks for free.

Sentencing remarks set out the judge’s reasoning, helping victims to understand how the sentence was reached without having to visit the courtroom—an experience that can be retraumatising for many. This change will embolden victims to look back on their bravery, and to process their experience at their own pace. This clause also delivers a major step forward for transparency more broadly, enabling victims to digest sentencing remarks outside the pressures of a courtroom setting, and free of charge. This is consistent with Sir Brian Leveson’s Independent Review of the Criminal Courts and the 2017 Lammy Review, which sought to shape a more open justice system fit to serve every victim.

The detail on timeframes and processes for providing transcripts will be set out in regulations, but I can confirm to the House that our intention is that the regulations will specify that transcripts will be provided within 14 days of a request being made. This timeframe will support requests under the unduly lenient sentence scheme, which currently allows referrals up to 28 days after sentencing. I also assure the noble and learned Lord, Lord Keen, that we are considering his amendment to the Victims and Courts Bill, which would extend this deadline to 56 days, extremely carefully.

I thank the noble Lord, Lord Marks, and the honourable Member for Chichester in the other place for raising important questions about the definition of “victim” and why it is necessary to allow for exceptions. We are carefully considering the scope of the definition of victim for these purposes, but I assure noble Lords that this clause does not restrict us to a narrow definition. We will ensure that there is as much consistency as possible in the definition of victim for the purpose of the code, and we will specifically consider the circumstances that the honourable Members for Chichester and Bexhill and Battle raised in the other place yesterday, where a victim is personally unable to request sentencing remarks. We have no intention of restricting access in these circumstances.

Further details will be set out in regulations, including any necessary safeguards or limited exceptions. We will ensure that any exceptions are limited, and our intention is that all victims will be able to request and receive their Crown Court sentencing remarks free of charge. But there may be circumstances where exceptions or omissions are necessary; for example, to protect the identity of another victim. I reassure noble Lords that these regulations will be subject to the affirmative procedure, so your Lordships’ House will have the opportunity to scrutinise the regulations carefully.

I can also confirm that an assessment of the previous pilot for free sentencing remarks for rape and serious sexual offence victims is under way. The results will be published shortly. This explores application volumes, costs of provision and any feedback from the courts on the process. It also includes applicant survey feedback, shared by victims or by those applying on their behalf.

This change represents a profound step forward for victims and for transparency in our justice system. For the first time, every victim whose case is heard in the Crown Court will have the right to access, free of charge, a clear explanation of how the sentence was reached. This is a landmark moment for transparency and open justice and a meaningful improvement for victims across the country. I urge all noble Lords to support the Government’s Motion, and I beg to move.

[Lord Keen of Elie (Con)]

My Lords, I thank the Minister for his remarks and the explanation he gave for the government amendment in lieu of our own amendment. I also thank him for his sustained engagement with Peers across the House, both in and outside the Chamber.

The Government have now committed to publishing sentencing remarks for all Crown Court trials, and we thank the Minister for this step. It was only in response to our successful Conservative amendment that the Government finally acted. It was regrettable that they opposed our original amendment in both Houses, but we welcome their amendment as a step forward in the right direction.

Sentencing remarks explain the judge’s reasoning in determining the sentence imposed. This is important not only for the victims, whose lives are disrupted in the most profound way by crime, but for the transparency required in the justice system. The provision of sentence remarks upon request will mean that victims who are unable to visit the courtroom, whether for practical reasons or because the experience is simply too traumatising, will be able to understand the reasoning behind sentences handed out to offenders.

This amendment builds on the work of the previous Conservative Government, who successfully piloted free access to sentencing remarks for victims of murder, rape and other sexual offences. This amendment now rightly widens that scope to all victims. It is wrong that a victim of, for example, aggravated burglary should have to pay to read the reasoning behind the sentence of the criminal who robbed their shop. This was a clear gap in the law that will now be filled.

The government amendment contains provisions for the timeline and processes for providing transcripts to be set out in regulations. I thank the Minister for his assurance that regulations will specify that transcripts will be provided within 14 days of a request being made. Under our current system, victims have just 28 days to submit an application for the unduly lenient sentence scheme. This can be a complex legal process to contend with in less than a month. It is our intention, as indicated by the Minister, to double the time that victims have available to 56 days. I am grateful that the Minister shares my commitment to ensuring that victims receive their transcripts before that point. Without timely access to these remarks, victims would risk being shut out of the scheme and denied access to justice.

Finally, I turn to the matter of publication. Open justice is an essential foundation of our democracy and sentencing will no doubt become more complex and discretionary under this Bill. We therefore believe that, in principle, sentencing remarks should be made available to the wider public to maintain transparency and accountability. Although the Government are unable to commit to the public release of sentencing remarks at this point, we note the progress made on this issue and we will raise the matter again during the passage of the Victims and Courts Bill.

This amendment represents a significant step forward for victims and for transparency in our justice system. It ensures that those affected by crime can access the reasoning behind sentences, and it builds on a clear Conservative record of reform. While there is more to do, we have now made real progress, and we will continue to press for full public access to sentencing remarks in future legislation.

--- Later in debate ---

[Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb (GP)]

My Lords, the amendments are certainly an improvement. Obviously, the Bill does not go as far as many of us would have liked, but it is still a pretty good Bill. In fact, if every Government Minister engaged as well and as comprehensively and listened as carefully as the noble Lord, Lord Timpson, this House would be a much calmer place. Perhaps he could give a few lessons to other people sitting on the Front Bench.

[Lord Timpson (Lab)]

I thank all noble Lords, especially the noble Baroness, Lady Jones, for their insightful contributions to today’s debate. I would like to think that my years of doing business deals have helped in trying to get this through. What I have learned doing business deals is that the way to get a good deal is to listen to everybody and, where good ideas come from all places, you take them on board: that is how you get a good deal. I hope the Sentencing Bill is a good Bill, because my colleagues and I have listened and it has been a very constructive process.

On the questions from the noble Lord, Lord Marks, and the noble Baroness, Lady Hamwee, I think I answered a number of those points in my opening speech, but I will carefully go through Hansard. Where I did not refer directly to their questions, I will write to them with exact details, and I am very happy to meet up to go through those points.

For me, victims come first and it is our intention to provide full sentencing remarks. We want to focus on the victims of the case, not the victims of different crimes. The involvement of family in this will be dealt with through regulations. We have a broad definition of “victim” and the exceptions will be very limited, but I want to make sure we get this right. We need to make sure that victims are not retraumatised by the process and, where some very vulnerable victims in a small number of cases may not be capable of asking for these, we need to make sure that that is dealt with. I am very happy to write and meet up to get this right.

It would be remiss of me to conclude my remarks without thanking those who have made a vital contribution. I again thank all noble Lords for their careful and constructive engagement through the Bill’s passage. That expertise has strengthened it in many important respects. I pay particular tribute to the noble Lord, Lord Lemos, for his expert guidance. I also thank the Deputy Prime Minister for his support, and the Minister for Sentencing for guiding the Bill so skilfully through the other place.

Finally, I thank all the officials across government for their skill and devotion to delivering the Bill. They are a really great team. I beg to move.

Motion A agreed.

Rehabilitation of Offenders Act 1974 (Exceptions) (Amendment) (England and Wales) Order 2025

Lord Timpson Excerpts

Wednesday 14th January 2026 Grand Committee

Moved by

[Lord Timpson]

That the Grand Committee do consider the Rehabilitation of Offenders Act 1974 (Exceptions) (Amendment) (England and Wales) Order 2025.

Relevant document: 44th Report from the Secondary Legislation Scrutiny Committee

[The Minister of State, Ministry of Justice (Lord Timpson) (Lab)]

My Lords, as many noble Lords will be aware, I am passionate about the rehabilitation of offenders. I have seen at first hand how transformative employment can be for those seeking to rebuild their lives after offending.

The Rehabilitation of Offenders Act 1974, which I will refer to as the ROA, governs the disclosure of cautions and convictions for most employment purposes. Its purpose is simple but vital: to ensure that, once a conviction is spent, individuals are not defined for ever by their past. For most people, once a conviction or caution becomes spent, it does not need to be disclosed when applying for work. This supports rehabilitation, helps to reduce reoffending and allows people to move on with their lives. However, this must always be balanced against the need to protect the public. That is why the ROA is accompanied by the exceptions order 1975, which sets out specific roles and activities where fuller disclosure is required. This is typically work involving vulnerable people, such as children, or a high degree of public trust. This instrument amends the exceptions order in a targeted and proportionate way.

Before I turn to the detail, I want to make something clear: even when an employer is aware of a spent conviction or caution, that should not amount to an automatic bar to employment. The Government encourage employers to take a balanced and thoughtful approach, considering factors such as the age of the individual at the time of the offence, how long ago it occurred, its relevance to the role and what safeguards can be put in place. In my own business experience, I have employed many people with criminal records. Time and again, they have proved to be among the most loyal, committed and capable colleagues. That experience has shaped my belief that disclosure rules must be fair and proportionate. They must give employers the information that they need to manage risk responsibly while still giving people the chance to rebuild their lives. We know that finding employment after release can reduce reoffending by up to nine percentage points, which is why we are strengthening links between prisons, probation and employers through employment advisory boards and the new regional employment councils.

In developing these proposals, officials have looked at evidence around gaps in the current framework and have considered the findings of the Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse. This instrument addresses those gaps and does so carefully. The instrument makes four amendments to the exceptions order. First, it extends access to enhanced DBS checks to self-employed individuals or personal employees working closely with children and vulnerable adults. Secondly, it brings within scope staff employed by the MoJ’s contracted provider of electronic monitoring and field services. Thirdly, it includes registered healthcare professionals employed or engaged by the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions or by their contractors and subcontractors. Finally, it enables appropriate disclosure checks for pedicab drivers in London, bringing them into line with taxi and private hire vehicle licensing following the Pedicabs (London) Act 2024. In each case, the amendment allows spent convictions to be considered as part of an informed and proportionate decision-making process, when assessing suitability for the role or licence in question. Relevant departments have committed to producing or updating guidance to support fair and consistent decision-making.

There is a compelling case for these changes. The first amendment closes a clear safeguarding gap. Families increasingly hire tutors, carers and therapists directly, often in unsupervised settings, yet without this change those individuals can only be asked for a basic criminal record check. Extending access to enhanced checks, including barred lists where appropriate, gives families the same reassurance that they would have if services were provided through an organisation such as a school. It also delivers on a key recommendation of the Alexis Jay inquiry.

The second amendment relates to electronic monitoring staff. These individuals play a crucial role in maintaining the integrity of court orders and release conditions. They have access to sensitive systems and exercise significant discretion. By enabling standard rather than basic disclosure checks, providers can better identify and manage risks and protect public confidence in the justice system.

Thirdly, the amendment covering registered healthcare professionals working for the DWP or its contractors reflects the vulnerability of the people they support. Around 2 million health assessments are carried out each year for individuals with long-term conditions or disabilities. Enabling fuller disclosure ensures that suitability for these roles can be properly assessed and appropriate safeguards maintained.

Finally, on pedicabs in London, following years of operating without regulation, TfL is now introducing a licensing regime. For that regime to command public confidence, pedicab drivers must be subject to the same safeguarding standards as taxi and private hire drivers. Without this amendment, TfL would be limited to basic checks, which is simply not sufficient, given the nature of the work.

This instrument strikes a careful and necessary balance. It strengthens safeguarding where it is needed, closes identified gaps and maintains the central principle of the ROA. The people who have moved on from their offending deserve the chance to rebuild their lives. I beg to move.

[Lord Keen of Elie (Con)]

My Lords, I am grateful to the Minister for his clear exposition of this matter. From these Benches, we are supportive of the order before us. The Rehabilitation of Offenders Act has, for more than 50 years, played an important role in supporting rehabilitation and enabling people who have offended to move on with their lives. That principle commands strong support, but it has always been recognised that rehabilitation cannot be an absolute and that there are particular roles, especially those involving children, vulnerable adults or positions of trust, where fuller disclosure is both reasonable and necessary to protect the public.

This order is modest in scope and targeted in nature. It does not represent a wholesale expansion of disclosure but rather responds to specific and well-evidenced gaps in the current framework. In particular, extending eligibility for enhanced DBS checks to self-employed individuals and those employed directly by families who work with children is a sensible and overdue step. The Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse commissioned under a Conservative Government made it clear that safeguarding should not depend on the technicality of whether someone is employed through an organisation or directly by a parent. Families deserve the same level of assurance in either case.

Similarly, we recognise the logic of bringing electronic monitoring contractor roles within the exception order. These are sensitive positions with real risks of corruption and serious consequences if safeguards fail. Ensuring that employers can properly assess suitability is essential for maintaining confidence in the criminal justice system. The inclusion of registered healthcare professionals carrying out DWP assessments is also proportionate. These individuals occupy positions of trust and have access to sensitive personal data. It is reasonable that the department is able to take a full view of suitability when making appointments to such roles.

Finally, aligning the DBS regime for pedicab drivers in London with that already in place for taxis and private hire vehicles is both logical and, indeed, necessary. Regulation without proper disclosure would expose Transport for London to unnecessary operational and reputational risk and would be out of step with public expectations.

However, as my honourable friend Kieran Mullan noted in the other place, support for these changes comes with a note of caution. The system for obtaining enhanced DBS checks is already under strain, with delays in some police force areas. As eligibility is expanded, it is incumbent on the Government to ensure that the system can cope and that safeguarding improvements are not undermined by avoidable backlogs.

Taken together, these measures strike the right balance between rehabilitation and public protection. They are proportionate, targeted and consistent with existing safeguarding frameworks.

[Lord Timpson (Lab)]

My Lords, I am grateful to the noble and learned Lord, Lord Keen, for his contribution. I hope that noble Lords will agree that this instrument is necessary and proportionate. The amendments before the Committee address clear and specific safeguarding gaps, covering individuals working closely with children and vulnerable adults, electronic monitoring staff, healthcare professionals supporting vulnerable claimants and pedicab drivers in London. They strengthen public protection in high-trust roles, while remaining true to the purpose of the ROA, supporting rehabilitation and enabling people to move on. The noble and learned Lord, Lord Keen, mentioned Kieran Mullan’s comments in the other place. I have been assured that the DBS system can cope with this volume coming through. I commend the instrument to the Committee.

Motion agreed.

Sentencing Bill

Lord Timpson Excerpts

3rd reading
Monday 12th January 2026 Lords Chamber

Moved by

[Lord Timpson]

That the Bill do now pass.

[The Minister of State, Ministry of Justice (Lord Timpson) (Lab)]

Before I begin, I can update the House that the Scottish Government have granted an LCM. This covers the provisions in the Sentencing Bill on the treatment of national security offenders, which affect the executive competence of Scottish Ministers. I am very grateful to the Scottish Parliament for working with us.

I start by thanking the many noble Lords who have contributed to the Bill through debates in this Chamber and the extensive discussions that have taken place beyond it. Those contributions have shown the very best of this House. I am especially grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Marks, and the noble Baroness, Lady Hamwee, for their support and engagement on key measures in the Bill. I also thank the noble and learned Lord, Lord Keen, and the noble Lord, Lord Sandhurst, for their informed interventions and constructive challenge. Lastly, I thank my noble friends Lady Chakrabarti and Lord Blunkett for their contributions. I have enjoyed working with, and have learned a lot from, all noble Lords in your Lordships’ House. I also want to thank the officials who have been involved in the Bill’s preparation and passage, who have supported me so ably.

This is a significant Bill. As I said at Second Reading, it will put our justice system on a sustainable footing fit for the future, one that prioritises victims, fairness and accountability, and one that prioritises punishment that works, but, with the help of your Lordships’ House, we have gone even further to strengthen the Bill. Through its passage, we have added safeguards, and increased transparency, around the new approvals processes for the Sentencing Council; made it a statutory requirement for the Government to lay an annual Statement on prison capacity before Parliament; agreed to remove the power for providers of probation services to publish names, and photos, of individuals subject to an unpaid work requirement; and brought hope to those serving IPP sentences, and their families, by offering a faster and safe route to the end of their sentence.

Alongside this, we extended the whole life order starting point to include the murder of probation officers, and we made sure that this extends to current or former police, prison and probation officers where they are murdered in connection with their duties, even if it occurs while they are off duty or after they have left the service. I pause here to again pay tribute to former prison custody officer Lenny Scott as well as his family, who I am meeting tomorrow, for their dignified and determined advocacy on his behalf.

Finally, I again recognise the noble Lord, Lord Foster, for his tireless and tenacious leadership on tackling gambling addiction. As he knows, I share his concerns, and this is something I have committed to look at very closely.

I finish by again thanking the many noble Lords and officials who have helped shape, strengthen and support this Bill through to its Third Reading. It will prioritise victims, bring stability to our justice system, and better protect the public. I am very proud of this Bill and look forward to working on its implementation. I beg to move.

[Lord Marks of Henley-on-Thames (LD)]

My Lords, I start by thanking the noble Lord, Lord Timpson, for his kind and generous introduction. This is an important Bill and we on these Benches have supported its principal purposes throughout—those being to address the extreme prison capacity crisis, to move away from reliance on more and longer prison sentences, and to introduce a presumption against short sentences of immediate imprisonment and switch to greater use of suspended sentences, coupled with community supervision. Our concerns now are to ensure that the Government’s ambitions for probation are properly resourced and met, and I know the noble Lord knows how challenging achieving those ambitions will be. It will involve better use of technology, effective use of tagging and in particular making a real success of the recruitment, training and motivation of the Prison and Probation Service.

The noble Lord also knows how much we on these Benches appreciate the engagement that he and the whole Bill team have had with us, but also with other noble Lords across the House. His approach to this Bill, and that of the noble Lord, Lord Lemos, have been a fine example of co-operation across the House driving significant improvement in legislation. We have made important changes and, I think, without wasting time. Among other welcome changes, we are particularly grateful to the Government for agreeing to the removal of Clause 35, with its unfortunate proposals for probation officers to take and publish photographs of offenders undertaking unpaid work. We are also very grateful for the Government’s commitment to thorough, open and regular reporting on prison and probation capacity and staffing. I pay credit to the contributions of my noble friend Lord Foster in this area, as well as for his contributions on gambling.

We believe that the Bill has the potential to move us towards a more effective and humane sentencing system that concentrates on rehabilitation of offenders and reducing reoffending and puts victims at its heart.

One issue that will need further consideration from the Commons, and again here, is the provision of free transcripts, for which this House voted, which would benefit public understanding, and particularly victims’ understanding, of how the justice system works. I hope we will find an agreed and acceptable way forward on this issue, despite the Government’s concern, which I understand, as to the initial cost of providing free transcripts.

Finally, on the other side of the balance, it is a shame that we have not made the progress that we sought in ending the scandal of IPP prisoners still in prison or on licence for years after their tariff sentences have been served. That is serious unfinished business, and the appalling injustice involved remains to be fully addressed. I know that Members around the House hope that it will be effectively addressed soon. Nevertheless, we are extremely pleased to see the successful passage of the Bill through the House.

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[Lord Russell of Liverpool (CB)]

My Lords, I will not follow the noble and learned Lord who has just sat down and go into the politics of this because I do not think this is the time or place. I do, however, congratulate the Minister on the way he has managed the Bill through this House. It is an exemplary example of someone coming in from the private sector with a successful track record of leading an unusual business and transferring that expertise, apparently effortlessly and flawlessly, into your Lordships’ House. He is an example for other new arrivals on the Front Bench alongside him to learn from; a few seminars with him would do them the world of good.

I will now briefly return to a subject that will not surprise the Minister or the noble and learned Lord, Lord Stewart, which is an issue we spoke about and had meetings about: perpetrators of domestic abuse and stalkers being released earlier than they should be. The Minister has been kind enough to suggest another meeting, so I can tell him that knocking on his door will be the Domestic Abuse Commissioner Dame Nicole Jacobs and the new Victims’ Commissioner Claire Waxman; her diary permitting, the Minister can also expect the noble Baroness, Lady May of Maidenhead, who will provide some real weight, and I gather she is one of the people who made the Minister actually think about going into public life. Finally, I will be there as the token male.

[Lord Timpson (Lab)]

I thank all noble and learned and noble Lords for their very kind feedback. I have never had an appraisal in my career; this is the first one I have had, and I will take the feedback. All noble Lords are welcome to knock on my door at any time, because I learn so much from what they bring, which makes what I am trying to do far better. I am extremely grateful to all noble Lords and my noble friend Lord Lemos for guiding me along the way on this and for contributing on very important parts of this Bill. Everyone has contributed to make this a very good Bill. Again, I thank all noble Lords and I beg to move.

Bill passed and returned to the Commons with amendments.

Sentencing Bill

Lord Timpson Excerpts

Report stage
Tuesday 6th January 2026 Lords Chamber

[Lord Keen of Elie (Con)]

My Lords, these amendments address the most complex and sensitive of legacies in our sentencing framework. Few issues illustrate more clearly the challenge of balancing public protection, fairness to victims, management of risk and the injustice to individuals who have already served far beyond their original tariff. The noble Lord, Lord Berkeley of Knighton, correctly pointed out that there is an issue here of proportionality; we seem to sometimes lose sight of that.

Amendment 76 does not provide for automatic or immediate release. Instead, it would require the Parole Board, where it does not direct release, to fix a future release date, subject to conditions intended to ensure public protection but also to instil some element of hope. The amendment would preserve a central role for the Parole Board, including, of course, powers to issue directions, vary release dates and reconsider decisions where public safety requires it. The inclusion of time limits seeks to balance progression with caution, though views may differ as to whether these limits are set at the right level.

These are complex judgments, and reasonable views can differ on how best to reconcile rehabilitation and public protection. These proposals represent a thoughtful attempt to impose coherence and fairness on an area of law that has become impossibly difficult, while attempting to keep public protection firmly in view. I hope that the Minister will engage constructively with the principles underlying these amendments and explain how the Government intend to address the long-term sustainability of the IPP regime. The status quo is untenable.

[The Minister of State, Ministry of Justice (Lord Timpson) (Lab)]

My Lords, I thank all noble Lords for their amendments on IPP sentences and for their impassioned speeches this evening. As the noble Lord, Lord Berkeley, kindly said, I share their commitment to addressing this issue with compassion, evidence and tenacity. I thank the many noble Lords who have participated in debates, meetings and discussions on this issue. I am grateful for their challenge and support, both in your Lordships’ House and at our Peers meetings, which I plan to continue in the future.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Keen of Elie (Con)]

My Lords, we welcome the inclusion of the additional condition proposed by the noble Lord, Lord Russell of Liverpool, in Amendments 83 and 86, to ensure that, for a transitional period, an offender who has breached a licence condition or court order in relation to their victim is not automatically released. It is an important amendment for protecting victims and maintaining confidence in the justice system. We are also supportive of Amendment 87, which excludes certain serious offenders from automatic release. This aligns with our Amendment 25 and ensures that those who pose the greatest risk to the public cannot benefit from automatic release.

[Lord Timpson (Lab)]

My Lords, I am very grateful to the noble Lords for tabling these amendments. Although we are still convinced that the approach in the Bill is right, it is only right that it receives thorough scrutiny. In drafting these measures, we have sought to strike a balance between ensuring that offenders can be safely managed in the community and the need to achieve a sustainable prison system. Nothing would be worse for victims than running out of prison cells.

The new system has been carefully designed to achieve this and to ensure consistent and proportionate responses to risk and non-compliance across all offence types. The offence-based exemptions proposed by Amendments 79 and 87 would undermine that consistency and may not reflect an individual’s actual risk level. The Bill already contains significant safeguards so that offenders who pose a greater risk are excluded from 56-day fixed-term recall. This includes those recalled on account of being charged with a further offence and those subject to multi-agency supervision levels 2 and 3. This applies to many sexual, violent and domestic abuse offenders.

Before any recalled offender is re-released, professionally qualified probation officers will undertake a thorough review of the release plans and licence conditions. They will ensure that needs and risks are managed, with a focus on mitigating risks against known victims. Furthermore, a prisoner given a fixed-term recall can be transferred to a standard recall if certain conditions are met, including if their risk escalates and they are then managed at multi-agency supervision levels 2 and 3. Offenders will leave prison to probation supervision and can be recalled again if considered a risk.

Amendments 80 and 81 seek to allow release from fixed-term recall at an earlier point than 56 days. The Independent Sentencing Review found that the current short duration of fixed-term recalls—14 or 28 days—does not provide enough time for offenders to address their risky behaviours in custody or for further risk reduction measures to be implemented. The Government agree with this assessment. This has been carefully considered with operational colleagues, and 56 days is enough time to undertake and put in place risk-management plans. Our proposed framework already provides sufficient flexibility without any further legislative change needed.

The Bill already allows the Secretary of State to keep an offender in custody past 56 days by overriding automatic re-release and converting a fixed-term recall to a standard recall. Where this happens, release is subject to Parole Board approval or, under the existing risk-assessed recall review process, allowing offenders to be released at any point before the 56 days where it is assessed safe to do so. For example, an offender could be recalled because of an increased risk linked to substance misuse. Having received structured support in custody that can be continued in the community, probation staff assess they can now be safely managed in the community. In this situation, they can be re-released before 56 days.

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[Lord Foster of Bath (LD)]

My Lords, I declare my interests as chairman of Peers for Gambling Reform and chairman of Action on Gambling. Amendments 95 and 99 are based on concerns that I have previously expressed during earlier stages of our consideration of the Bill. At present, gambling disorder, unlike drugs and alcohol addiction, is not adequately addressed within the criminal justice system. Gambling disorder simply does not have parity of esteem with drug and alcohol addiction, and I believe that it should. The internationally agreed classification of mental disorders believes that it should and puts drugs, alcohol and gambling in a special subgroup of substance-related and addictive disorders. The Association of Police and Crime Commissioners believes that there should be parity. Our own NICE guidelines say the same and state that screening about gambling should occur at each point of contact with the criminal justice system.

However, at present, there is no parity of esteem and, as a result, we are failing to tackle one of the key issues that lead people to offend and reoffend. We know from independent research that, for example, a far higher percentage—over 25%—of the prison population suffer gambling harm than in the general population, and gambling is rife within our prisons. Yet current assessment of offenders rarely identifies gambling disorder because it is not adequately referenced in current and planned future assessment procedures. Support and treatment for gambling disorder are rarely available either in prisons or to those under the supervision of the Probation Service.

As a result, many individuals enter court or prison or start a non-custodial sentence without any assessment of whether gambling disorder contributed to their offence. Courts rarely then have access to gambling-specific reports, leaving judges without evidence to make an informed sentencing decision. There is no statutory gambling treatment requirement, leaving courts without structured, clinically guided alternatives to custodial sentences. Within prisons, or for those under the supervision of the Probation Service, treatment and peer-support options are largely absent. On release, continuity of care is, frankly, inconsistent, leaving individuals vulnerable to relapse and reoffending.

Amendments 95 and 99 seek to overcome these problems in terms of assessment and support for gambling disorders among offenders. They seek to give parity of esteem for drug and alcohol addiction and gambling disorders. I beg to move Amendment 95.

[Lord Timpson (Lab)]

My Lords, I know it is late, but it is important that I cover a number of very important points. I must begin by paying tribute to the noble Lord, Lord Foster. He has shown extraordinary tenacity and leadership in tackling gambling addiction and harms in the criminal justice system. I have certainly learned a lot from my conversations with the noble Lord on the subject and it is no exaggeration to say that, without his interventions, I would not have fully appreciated the importance and significance of gambling addiction in driving offending. I also reflect back on leading a business where, if I had been more aware of problems with gambling addiction, I could have supported colleagues in a better way.

I can assure the noble Lord that this is now a personal priority of mine. I accept that there is more to do to ensure that there is parity of esteem between gambling addiction and more commonly recognised addictions such as to drugs and alcohol. This work must be done urgently and I have tasked my officials to get on with ensuring that this is taken forward. I am firmly committed to identifying offenders’ problems, whether they be drug, alcohol or gambling addictions, to ensure that they can access the support they need to help turn their lives around and reduce reoffending. But, although we agree wholeheartedly with the spirit of Amendment 95, we do not believe that legislation is needed. There are already multiple opportunities for an offender’s needs to be identified, including via pre-sentence reports. Staff are also encouraged to consider gambling-related risks in risk assessments and rehabilitation planning.

To ensure a consistent approach throughout the criminal justice system, probation and prison staff use a single tool: the offender assessment system, OASys for short. I recognise that OASys provides minimal overt prompts to encourage them to take gambling harms and addiction into account, compared with drugs and alcohol addiction. However, a new tool known as ARNS is replacing this. An early version is now operating in four probation regions. To ensure we focus more closely on gambling, ARNS is already testing updated questions including: is the person affected by gambling? This is in the finance section. If the answer is yes, the tool automatically prompts for further details. Additionally, the new ARNS sentence plan, due to be rolled out nationally from March this year, already includes gambling-related rehabilitative goals for relevant individuals. However, I accept that such a question is probably not best placed in the finance section and we will review this, based on advice from experts in the field.

The Government are committed to working with experts in the gambling sector as we develop, test and refine our approach this year. We have therefore invited a world-renowned expert on gambling addiction, Dr Matt Gaskell, to advise the ARNS project as a member of its academic expert group, and I am very grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Foster, for introducing us to him. We will collaborate with Dr Gaskell and the practitioners testing the tool to establish how to make it work, based on the evidence they present. We will take a proportionate and evidence-led approach in determining how and when assessments are completed. To confirm, I am committed to giving gambling addiction parity of esteem. Our approach will continue to evolve, guided by evidence and informed by expert advice to improve outcomes. I am excited to convene a gambling round table in the coming months, bringing together leading voices to share valuable insights. I am looking forward also to touring the country to speak to probation officers this spring and will share the importance of gambling addiction with them then.

I also thank the noble Lord for tabling Amendment 99. As with Amendment 95, I agree entirely with the principle of supporting offenders to reduce reoffending. Many rehabilitative interventions are already available for individuals with a gambling addiction or disorder. These include support with thinking and behaviour, debt advice, relationships, homelessness and unemployment. Mutual aid groups such as Gamblers Anonymous also have a very important role to play.

I recognise that there is more to do to improve access to mutual aid across the estate, not just for gambling but also for drugs and alcohol. It is a personal aim of mine to ensure that all prisons have weekly access to Gamblers Anonymous, Alcoholics Anonymous and Narcotics Anonymous meetings, and I want to work closely with these fellowships to achieve this. I am pleased that Gambling Anonymous is already operating in 11 prisons and I am sure that many prisoners benefit from its support. HMPPS has established a forum for mutual aid fellowships to help identify and tackle barriers to access. With the support of forum members, HMPPS has developed guidance for prisoners on facilitating access to mutual aid and is co-developing promotional materials. The forum includes Gamblers Anonymous and I am grateful for its ongoing support and collaboration.

Recognising that there is more we need to do, we are working with health partners to ensure that pathways to treatment and recovery services are accessible for people in the criminal justice system. This includes support with thinking and behaviour, debt advice, relationships, homelessness and unemployment. We are working with health partners in the scoping and development of future work undertaken through the treatment strand of the gambling levy programme, which will be allocated 50% of funding from the levy. Funding from the statutory gambling levy will further bolster the support available, and the Government have committed to publishing an annual report on the progress of the levy.

Pilots are already in place to strengthen treatment provision in criminal justice settings across both NHS and third-sector providers. NHS England is committed to building on these pilots to ensure treatment interventions are robust, effective and evidence led. It is working hand in hand with the Office for Health Improvement and Disparities, which lead the prevention strand of the levy, to deepen our understanding of prevalence and inform future approaches to screening.

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Moved by

[Lord Timpson]

101: Clause 46, page 77, line 1, after “9,” insert “(Whole life order: murder of police, prison or probation officer),”
Member’s explanatory statement
This amendment would provide for my new clause to be inserted after clause 10 to come into force at the end of two months beginning with the day on which the Bill is passed.

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Moved by

[Lord Timpson]

102: Clause 46, page 77, line 1, leave out “and 38 to 40” and insert “, 38, 39 and 40”
Member’s explanatory statement
This amendment amends the commencement clause in the Bill and is consequential on my amendment inserting a new clause before clause 40.

Sentencing Bill

Lord Timpson Excerpts

Report stage
Tuesday 6th January 2026 Lords Chamber

[Lord Marks of Henley-on-Thames (LD)]

My Lords, if nobody is going to speak before me on this amendment, I shall do so, but only very briefly. I hear everything that the noble and learned Lord, Lord Keen, has said, but it is my view and my suggestion that that misunderstands the nature of the discount that is given for a guilty plea. A discount for a guilty plea may not have originally been formalised, but it has always been treated, and should be treated, as mitigation of itself, properly so called, because it recognises guilt, and by recognising guilt, the defendant goes some way to establishing reform. It is the starting point for reform. It also, as the noble and learned Lord has recognised, avoids the trauma of a trial for victims and is a further indication of remorse. So I fully understand why a guilty plea, while it may be that without a guilty plea a sentence would have exceeded 12 months, should attract exactly the same discount as in the case of not guilty pleas.

[The Minister of State, Ministry of Justice (Lord Timpson) (Lab)]

I start by setting out my appreciation for the support that the Government have received for Clause 1. Throughout the Bill’s passage, noble Lords have highlighted evidence showing that those given a community order or a suspended sentence reoffend less than similar offenders given a short prison sentence. We are following the evidence to reduce crime, creating fewer victims and safer communities, and we are following the lead of the previous Conservative Government, who originally introduced this measure during the last Parliament without the amendment we are debating today. I am a great believer in working across the political spectrum to get the best policies that reduce reoffending. I have dedicated myself to solving this problem and creating a sustainable justice system. I strongly believe that the clause as drafted, without any further amendments, is the best policy, and I must repeat that we are not abolishing short sentences.

I can assure noble Lords that I have considered the issue of early guilty pleas, raised by Amendments 1 and 27, with great care. I have met the noble and learned Lord to discuss his concerns and I value the attention given to this issue, but it has long been the practice of the courts to give a reduction in sentence where a defendant pleads guilty. This avoids the need for a trial, enables cases to be dealt with quickly and shortens the gap between charge and sentence. The Government do not wish to disincentivise early guilty pleas, in part because of the urgent need to reduce the backlog in cases coming to court. Early guilty pleas can save victims and witnesses from concern about having to give evidence, which is particularly important in traumatic cases. These amendments risk reducing the incentive to plead guilty, potentially causing further avoidable trauma for victims, and they would create a clear and significant anomaly in sentencing.

For reasons of simplicity and coherence, it is the final sentence length given by the judge that must be relevant for the purposes of the presumption. Under these amendments, the presumption would not apply where an early guilty plea had brought the sentence down to 12 months or less, yet it could still apply where any other mitigation, such as age or being a primary carer, had the same effect. The inconsistency is stark. Two offenders receiving the same final sentence could be treated entirely differently, based solely on the type of mitigation applied. This is neither coherent nor fair.

Finally, the sunset clause proposed in Amendment 103 would introduce unnecessary instability. It would undermine public confidence and complicate operational planning for courts, prisons, probation services and local authorities. The last thing we need at the moment is instability in the justice system.

I am a firm believer in dealing with problems head-on and solving them for the long term. We inherited difficult decisions that needed to be made, but someone had to make them, because we simply cannot run out of cells. We are building 14,000 new ones, but that takes time. I came into this job to rebuild our criminal justice system to lead to fewer victims, not more. Clause 1 is a crucial means of achieving that, and undermining it through further exclusions is not the right way forward. There will be a long shadow over those who vote for amendments to put even more pressure on the prison system.

I hope that I have explained why the Government’s position is the right one and I hope for cross-party support for a truly cross-party policy. After all, this was originally a Conservative measure, reintroduced in this Bill by Labour and supported by the Liberal Democrats, Plaid Cymru and the Green Party in Committee in the Commons. I therefore kindly urge noble Lords not to support these amendments.

[Lord Keen of Elie (Con)]

I am obliged to the Minister for his observations. However, I have a number of points.

First, the apparent use of statistics comparing repeat offending by those who suffer a suspended sentence with those who are given a prison sentence is, potentially, very misleading. In general, repeat offenders will receive a sentence of imprisonment, whereas single offenders will often receive a suspended sentence. It is those who are inclined towards the repetition of criminal conduct who are imprisoned, and therefore the comparison made with these statistics is, potentially, highly misleading.

Secondly, I do not accept the reference to any other mitigation. The procedural mitigation—procedural discount, in reality—granted in respect of a guilty plea is not comparable. It was not in the past considered comparable with the other aspects of mitigation mentioned by the noble Lord.

The Government have repeatedly described this policy as targeting only genuinely short sentences. Sentences of more than 12 months are not genuinely short sentences; they are sentences that can be imposed only by the Crown Court. They are regarded as sentences applicable to serious criminal conduct; that is not the purpose of Clause 1 in its present form. The Government wrote in their own manifesto that the sentences criminals receive

“often do not make sense either to victims or the wider public”.

Allowing serious offenders to evade custody will do little to rebuild public confidence in the justice system. If the Government truly intend to suspend sentences of up to 18 months as a matter of policy, they should have plainly said so. If they do not, they should accept this amendment. In these circumstances, with some regret, I beg to test the opinion of the House.

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We agree with the earned release concept that the Bill incorporates. The Government have moved towards our position on rewarding good behaviour in prison, introducing what I call carrot as well as stick. These are important reforms, and, for these principled reasons, we will be opposing this amendment.

[Lord Timpson (Lab)]

While the Government understand the concern that underpins this amendment, we do not believe it is necessary. It was not included by the last Conservative Government when they originally introduced this measure. Let me be clear: we are not abolishing short sentences. Public protection is our main priority, and we will make sure that the most dangerous offenders are put where they belong: behind bars.

In response to the noble Baronesses, Lady May and Lady Fox, I recognise that prison sentences, even if short, can be critical to safeguarding victims of domestic abuse or VAWG. Courts will still have discretion to impose immediate custody in any case involving significant risk of physical or psychological harm to an individual—for example, to protect an at-risk domestic abuse victim. Courts will also have discretion to impose immediate custody in exceptional circumstances and where offenders breach court orders.

Through Committee stage amendments in the other place, we strengthened the wording in the Bill even further, so that there can be no doubt. Where offenders breach court orders, including VAWG-related protective orders, they can receive an immediate custodial sentence. For example, if someone breaches a domestic violence protection order—a civil breach rather than a criminal offence—and assaults their partner, the presumption would not apply and they could go straight to prison.

With thanks to the Liberal Democrats, and, importantly, the Member for Eastbourne in the other place, we are also introducing a new judicial finding of domestic abuse at sentencing, so these offenders are better identified and monitored throughout the system. This has been welcomed by the Domestic Abuse Commissioner, and, in this place, the noble Baroness, Lady Hamwee, and the noble Lord, Lord Marks.

The noble and learned Lord clearly cares deeply about the experience of victims. But if this amendment were to pass, it would undermine the fundamental problem that this legislation will fix—the issue the previous Government neglected for 14 years. I urge the noble Lord and noble and learned Lord to withdraw this amendment, and to support the Government’s position.

[Lord Keen of Elie (Con)]

My Lords, the argument of the noble Lord, Lord Marks, about fault for the issue of prison capacity, staffing and resources will bring little comfort to the victims of sexual offences and domestic abuse. His reference to offences that attract a sentence of 12 months or less omits the point that, of course, Clause 1 in its present form would apply to offences attracting a sentence of 18 months or less, albeit there is then a discount for a guilty plea because of a procedural provision.

I am obliged to my noble friend Lady May and to the noble Baroness, Lady Fox, for their contributions. The fact is that sexual offending and domestic abuse are uniquely serious and harmful—that has been recognised by the present Government. They are characterised by repetition, coercion and control, and they have a profound victim impact. In such cases, custody serves functions that a suspended sentence cannot: protection of victims, reassurance, deterrence and public confidence. For sexual offences and domestic abuse, immediate public protection should take precedence over other considerations, including questions of prison capacity. That includes abstract arguments on rehabilitation and what is non-conclusive data regarding reoffending rates as between suspended sentences and prison sentences.

This Government have pledged in their manifesto to halve violence against women and girls. They are hardly proposing to go in that direction with the present form of Clause 1. It is not enough that there should be exceptional circumstances; the very essence of a sexual offence and of domestic abuse is an exceptional circumstance. The public recognise that, and this Government should recognise that. I seek leave to divide the House.

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[Lord Timpson (Lab)]

I thank all noble Lords who have tabled amendments in this group. They speak to the fundamental questions about the purpose of the criminal justice system, and I recognise that a sincere desire to improve it underpins them.

Amendments 71 to 73 raise important points about transparency and evidence-based policy-making. The Government fully appreciate the sentiment behind these amendments. An independent body could offer valuable insight and security, and it is a concept that requires careful consideration. The Independent Sentencing Review recommended establishing an independent advisory board in the longer term. It noted that it could help ensure a “strategic, evidence-based approach” to the use of custody and provide transparency for the Government and the public. We are therefore considering this recommendation carefully. As I hope your Lordships will understand, creating such a panel requires detailed thought to ensure that it fits coherently within the wider criminal justice system, and I reassure your Lordships’ House that the Government are carefully considering this recommendation in detail.

In the meantime, we will continue to publish comprehensive data on convictions and sentencing outcomes for a wide range of offences on a quarterly basis. Ultimately, our shared goal is a fair, sustainable justice system that protects the public and reduces reoffending. The Bill is a key step towards that, and I hope this reassures noble Lords.

I appreciate the sentiment of Amendment 52 proposed by the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Gloucester and the noble Lord, Lord Moylan, as well as the thoughtful contribution from my friend, the noble Lord, Lord Carter. However, I respectfully disagree that a definition in statute is necessary. This is because the five existing purposes of sentencing must already be considered by the court when imposing all sentencing disposals, including imprisonment. We are not aware of any gap in law or practice that would justify introducing a separate purpose of imprisonment into statute.

I also share the ambition to ensure that time in custody is used productively to support rehabilitation and reduce reoffending, expressed by the noble Baronesses, Lady Neville-Rolfe and Lady Fox, the noble and learned Baroness, Lady Butler-Sloss, and the noble Viscount, Lord Hailsham, whom I thank for his service with the independent monitoring board. I have dedicated many years of my working life to this, setting up work- shops in prisons so that offenders leave custody ready for employment.

However, making participation mandatory for every custodial sentence would be impractical and, in some cases, counterproductive. Prison populations vary widely, and rehabilitation works best when voluntary and tailored to individual needs. Many prisoners face educational trauma, neurodivergence and mental health challenges or are nearing retirement age. Some prisoners have many or even all of these issues. A blanket statutory requirement would risk undermining genuine engagement.

That said, we are not standing still. Last year, over 50,000 prisoners took part in education, marking a 10% rise year on year. We are expanding digital tools such as Launchpad to increase prisoner access to educational content, and I look forward to showing the noble Baroness some of the work in progress on a joint visit.

I wholeheartedly agree with the noble and learned Lord, Lord Garnier, as to the importance of employment for rehabilitation. That is why we are increasing work opportunities through prison industries and opening workshops with employers such as Halfords, Greene King and Marston’s. Our new Working Week pilot in five prisons will further boost purposeful activity and strengthen links with businesses to improve employment prospects on release. We publish prison performance data that includes attendance and progress in English and maths and the percentage of prisoners in purposeful activity in each prison in the prison performance framework.

This takes me on to the need for legal aid to lodge deportation appeals, and I am grateful to my noble friend Lord Bach for his amendment. I recognise and pay tribute to his long-standing experience, expertise and contributions in the area of legal aid, both as a Minister and as chair of the commission to review legal aid and access to justice which bore his name. I reassure my noble friend that legal aid is already available to appeal a sentence and in the other circumstances set out in the amendment. I therefore do not think the amendment is necessary.

I recognise that this legislation makes changes to the early removal scheme. We are working closely with His Majesty’s Prison and Probation Service and the Home Office to make sure that the new arrangements take account of the need for some prisoners to have access to legal aid. We will of course also continue to keep under review the overall effectiveness of operational processes regarding access to legal aid in prison.

I thank my noble friend Lady Chakrabarti for tabling Amendment 98 and for writing to me setting out her considered effort on this. Repealing this would remove an important safeguard that, although used very infrequently, remains an option for the courts as a last resort and out of concern for the defendant; for example, if an individual could be subject to repercussions if they were not protected. I know that my noble friend and the noble Baroness, Lady Jones, would like more transparency on the use of this measure. The Ministry of Justice currently publishes court remand data within the criminal justice statistics. However, source information on reasons for remand is not currently available. We are continuing to monitor and assess the quality of the data captured on the reasons for remand. This will enable us to publish more detailed data in the future, which I think will be helpful.

The Mental Health Act, which has now received Royal Assent, ends the use of remand for own protection under the Bail Act where the court’s sole concern is the defendant’s mental health. This is good news. This reform ensures that remand for own protection is used only as the last resort for a short period and where no reasonable alternatives have been found. It has been found by the High Court to be compatible with Article 5 of the European Convention on Human Rights. I am grateful for my noble friend’s challenge on this. I want to go further and am in the process of organising a cross-government round table to discuss how we can reduce the number of people who are remanded for their own protection. I would be delighted if my noble friend would support me in these endeavours. I thank noble Lords for raising these important points but respectfully ask that Amendment 52 be withdrawn.

[The Lord Bishop of Gloucester]

My Lords, I am grateful to all noble Lords who have spoken in this group. I have listened carefully, especially to the Minister, and I am disappointed that he has not accepted my Amendment 52. The purposes of sentencing do not go far enough and bringing clarity to what prison is for would not only assist public understanding but provide clarity in decision-making and purpose for those working with and within the criminal justice system. But, for now, I beg leave to withdraw my amendment.

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Moved by

[Lord Timpson]

53: After Clause 10, insert the following new Clause—
“Whole life order: murder of police, prison or probation officer
Whole life order: murder of police, prison or probation officerIn paragraph 2(2) of Schedule 21 to the Sentencing Code (mandatory life sentences: starting point of whole life order), after paragraph (c) insert—“(ca) the murder of an officer of a provider of probation services in the course of his or her duty, where the offence was committed on or after the day on which section (Whole life order: murder of police, prison or probation officer) of the Sentencing Act 2026 came into force,(cb) the murder of a person who was serving or had ceased to serve as a police officer, a prison officer or an officer of a provider of probation services where—(i) the offence was motivated wholly or partly by something done by the victim in the course of their duty as a police officer, a prison officer or an officer of a provider of probation services, and(ii) the offence was committed on or after the day on which section (Whole life order: murder of police, prison or probation officer) of the Sentencing Act 2026 came into force,”.”Member’s explanatory statement
This amendment would mean that a whole life order was the normal starting point for a life sentence in the case of the murder of a probation officer acting in the course of their duty or the murder of a serving or former police, prison or probation officer motivated by something done by the officer in the course of their duty.

[Lord Timpson (Lab)]

I begin by thanking the noble and learned Lord, Lord Keen, and the noble Lord, Lord Sandhurst, for raising this important issue. I also thank the shadow Justice Minister in the other place.

A whole life order is the most severe form of punishment that the courts can impose. The sentencing framework for murder already provides that a whole life order is normally the appropriate starting point for the murder of a police officer or prison officer in the course of their duty. I am pleased to confirm that, through Amendment 53, we are broadening the current whole life order starting point. This will mean that it applies where the motivation for the murder is connected to the current or former duties of a police officer, prison officer or probation officer. This could apply to revenge killings where the murder occurs for reasons connected to the duties of a current or former officer, but not while the officer is acting in the course of duty, such as the tragic murder of former prison custody officer Lenny Scott. I look forward to meeting Lenny’s family soon.

Amendment 53 also expands a whole life order starting point to include probation officers. A whole life order will become the normal starting point for the murder of a probation officer in the course of duty, or where it is motivated by their current or former duties. We recognise the unique and dangerous job that police, prison and probation officers do. They perform a distinctive role involving routine contact with dangerous offenders in difficult situations, and I am proud to call them colleagues. We want to ensure that the exceptional seriousness of murders motivated by their work are expressly recognised in the sentencing framework for murder.

I conclude by thanking both noble Lords and Members of Parliament for advocating for this change and the family of Lenny Scott for so admirably advocating for their son. I am pleased that we have been able to work together to bring about this change. Given the Government’s amendment, I hope that the noble Lord and the noble and learned Lord will be content not to press Amendment 62.

Turning to Amendment 89, I thank noble Lords for the points of concern about this clause that they raised during the Committee debate. These echo the concerns raised by many throughout the passage of the Bill. I have listened carefully and recognise the issues raised. I am satisfied that the current delivery of unpaid work, bolstered by the wider provisions in the Bill, means that unpaid work will continue to be tough and visible enough without the addition of this specific measure.

As unpaid work often involves physically demanding work out in the community, it is, by its very nature, a visible form of punishment. Moreover, the public are involved in nominating unpaid work projects, and local agencies are consulted on the suitability of projects. Beneficiaries, such as charities and local councils, often publicise the positive work that goes on in this space.

Wider measures in the Bill aim to increase the effectiveness of unpaid work by streamlining processes and incentivising offenders to comply with and engage in their placement. These come alongside a suite of changes that ensure robust management of offenders in the community more generally. These include making new community requirements available to the courts to punish offenders, such as banning them from certain activities, restricting their movements to ban them from attending bars, pubs, clubs, sports events and concerts, and increasing tagging upon release.

It is on this basis that I accept the noble Lord’s amendment to leave out Clause 35 from the Bill. I thank all those who have contributed to the debate, and I hope that noble Lords agree that this is the right course of action. I beg to move.

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[Lord Timpson (Lab)]

I thank noble Lords from across the House both for their support for Amendment 53 and for raising their concerns around Clause 35. I confirm that the Government will accept Amendment 89.

Amendment 53 agreed.

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Moved by

[Lord Timpson]

55: Clause 18, page 36, line 21, at end insert—
“(4) If the Lord Chancellor decides not to approve the business plan for a financial year, the Lord Chancellor must—(a) notify the Council, and(b) as soon as practicable after doing so, lay before Parliament a document stating the reason for the decision.”Member’s explanatory statement
This amendment sets out what the Lord Chancellor must do in the event that the Lord Chancellor decides not to approve a business plan that the Sentencing Council has submitted for approval.

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Moved by

[Lord Timpson]

56: Clause 19, page 36, line 33, at end insert—
“(c) after subsection (8) insert— “(8A) The Lord Chief Justice and the Lord Chancellor must consider any request for consent under subsection (7) or (8) as soon as practicable after receiving the request.(8B) The Lord Chief Justice or the Lord Chancellor may withhold consent under subsection (7) or (8) only if the Lord Chief Justice or (as the case may be) the Lord Chancellor considers that it is necessary to do so in order to maintain public confidence in the criminal justice system.(8C) If the Lord Chief Justice or the Lord Chancellor decides to withhold consent under subsection (7) or (8), the Lord Chief Justice or (as the case may be) the Lord Chancellor must, as soon as practicable after making the decision, lay before Parliament a document stating the reason for the decision.”;(d) in subsection (10), after “and (8)” insert “to (8C)”.”Member’s explanatory statement
This amendment provides that the Lord Chief Justice or Lord Chancellor may withhold consent to a request from the Sentencing Council to issue sentencing guidelines only if it is necessary to do so in order to maintain public confidence in the criminal justice system and requires the reason for withholding consent to be laid before Parliament.

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Moved by

[Lord Timpson]

58: After Clause 19, insert the following new Clause—
“Prison capacity report
Annual report relating to prison capacity(1) The Secretary of State must, for each year, prepare and lay before Parliament a report relating to prison capacity.(2) The report for a year—(a) must include information about—(i) the number of people in prison and the number of prison places on a particular date or dates in that year, and(ii) projected changes in the number of people in prison and the number of prison places, and (b) may include any other information that the Secretary of State considers appropriate.(3) The Secretary of State must publish the report after it has been laid before Parliament.(4) “Prison” does not include a naval, military or air force prison.(5) In the Prison Act 1952—(a) omit section 5 (annual report on prisons);(b) in section 43 (places for the detention of young offenders), in the table in subsection (4), in the second column for the entry for “secure training centres or secure colleges” omit “5,”.”Member’s explanatory statement
This amendment imposes a duty on the Secretary of State to prepare an annual report on prison capacity and repeals section 5 of the Prison Act 1952 which is about annual reports on prisons.

[Lord Timpson (Lab)]

My Lords, in my first month in this job, I told your Lordships’ House that this Government would introduce a new standard of transparency. We demonstrated this by publishing the first annual statement on prison capacity last December. This amendment goes further by making it a statutory requirement to lay this statement before Parliament each year. When the requirement to publish an annual capacity statement comes into force, we will also repeal Section 5 of the Prison Act 1952. This is to ensure that there is no duplication or overlap in statute between the new duty and Section 5 of the 1952 Act.

I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Foster, for raising this issue in Committee and for his continuous engagement since to help keep transparency at the heart of our approach. The Government resisted the noble Lord’s amendment because we want to retain the necessary flexibility on timing for publication and content.

The 2024 annual statement included a section on probation capacity and the 2025 statement will do the same. We agree that probation capacity is an essential part of understanding pressures across the criminal justice system. The Government already publish detailed statistics about the prison and probation workforce on a quarterly basis. This contains detailed information about both prison and probation staffing. This was last published in November and I encourage noble Lords to review it carefully. I am happy to commit that we will continue to publish this information.

I agree that probation staffing and case loads are important metrics. We know that the risk profile in the probation case load is dynamic and can change over time, so these metrics do not by themselves provide the full picture. Retaining flexibility on how probation capacity is presented allows the statement to evolve and reflect changes in delivery and ensures that the information provided remains genuinely informative for Parliament. However, I am happy to commit that probation will form a part of the annual capacity statement in future. I can also commit to providing regular updates to noble Lords on our plan to rebuild the Probation Service. I thank the noble Lords who came to the presentations I gave yesterday.

I recognised the close interest of probation trade unions in Amendment 134 in Committee. Trade unions play a vital role in representing their members, and I greatly value our ongoing engagement and meaningful consultations. We also recognise His Majesty’s Inspectorate of Probation as a key stakeholder, and I meet up regularly with Martin Jones. But it is important to preserve its independence as an inspectorate. The amendment would have risked shifting the inspectorate towards a regulatory role, compromising its independent scrutiny. It would have harmed, not helped, the justice system by preventing vital measures in the Bill being commenced. Many of these measures will alleviate the pressure on both prisons and probation, and it would be counterproductive to delay their introduction.

I wholeheartedly agree with the noble Lords, Lord Jackson and Lord Farmer, that evaluating policies is key to achieving objectives such as reducing reoffending. I hope noble Lords are reassured by the fact that reducing reoffending is so important to me that I had it added to my job title. This is why the Ministry of Justice publishes proven reoffending statistics on a quarterly basis. Our analysts are scoping how we can monitor and evaluate the Sentencing Bill measures across a range of outcomes, including reoffending rates. We keep the sentencing framework under ongoing review to ensure that it remains fit for purpose. I can assure noble Lords that we will of course continue to do so in the future, taking account of the available evidence, including changes introduced by the Bill.

The evidence shows that those given a community order or suspended sentence order reoffend less than similar offenders given a short prison sentence. However, there are many factors that go into whether someone reoffends. Creating artificial targets would not support hard-working front-line staff trying to improve the system. In fact, it would bring considerable uncertainty to those staff—that is not helpful either. Of course, we keep the sentencing framework under ongoing review to ensure that it remains fit for purpose. I can assure noble Lords that we will continue to do so in future, taking account of the available evidence, including changes introduced by the Bill. I look forward to updating the noble Lords, Lord Farmer and Lord Jackson, on the evidence we gather as it comes through.

I am very grateful to the noble and learned Lord, Lord Keen of Elie, and the noble Lord, Lord Sandhurst, for their continued advocacy for a child cruelty register. I pay tribute to Helen Grant MP and Paula Hudgell for campaigning to protect children from the appalling abuse such as that inflicted on Paula’s adopted son, Tony. As I set out in Committee, we are already taking decisive action in the Crime and Policing Bill to protect our children from those who would commit abhorrent crimes against them. Further work is needed to identify the best way to close the gap that Paula has rightly identified, so we are not in a position to accept Amendment 92 at this time. This week, the Minister for Safeguarding and Violence against Women and Girls is meeting policing leads to get their insights about how a register with notification requirements would work in practice. I can assure the noble and learned Lord that Government Ministers will continue to pursue this issue vigorously. With those reassurances, I hope that at this stage the noble and learned Lord will feel able not to press his amendment.

I now move on to Amendment 97. I would like to thank the noble and learned Lord, Lord Thomas, for his contributions to the debate around justice in Wales and for taking the time to meet me and officials. Despite the challenging period we are facing across the prison estate in England and Wales, prisons in Wales have performed well in their inspections by His Majesty’s inspectorates. North Wales probation delivery unit stood out as the highest-performing PDU across England and Wales in its inspection in November 2025. All Welsh prisons have robust action plans in place to ensure continued improvement. There are clear strengths in leadership and governance in Wales. But the criminal justice system works in Wales because it is part of a wider system. The noble and learned Lord’s report on justice in Wales, published in 2019, spoke of the interface between devolved and reserved services in Wales. The partial devolution of criminal justice would create a new interface between these services and reserved matters such as sentencing, policing and the criminal law.

We should continue to the examine ways in which things can be done better. As the noble and learned Lord is aware, the Government have committed in their manifesto to undertake a review of probation governance. We will continue to work closely with the Welsh Government on commitments on justice in Wales. However, it is important that the recommendations of the sentencing review and the review of the criminal courts are implemented and that we bring stability into the Prison and Probation Service in England and Wales before undertaking any structural review. I therefore ask that the noble and learned Lord does not press his amendment.

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[Lord Keen of Elie (Con)]

My Lords, I will speak briefly in support of Amendment 58, which introduces an annual report on prison capacity. This is an issue that we pressed in Committee and I am grateful to the Government for having listened and for bringing forward this amendment. The amendment places a clear duty on the Secretary of State to report annually to Parliament on the number of people in custody, the number of available prison places, and projected changes. That is a welcome and important step. If Parliament is being asked to legislate for significant changes to sentencing and release policy, it is only right that we are also given a regular and transparent account of the state of the prison estate that underpins those decisions.

Ideally, we would have liked this report to go further. There is a strong case for including more detailed information on the drivers between sentencing policy, probation capacity and reoffending. However, I recognise that the Government face a balancing act between the need for transparency and the administrative constraints on producing such reports, and I accept that the amendment strikes a reasonable and proportionate compromise.

On Amendment 92 and the issue of the child cruelty register, again I thank the Government for their ongoing communication on this important topic and their assurances that they would like to implement a policy in support of a child cruelty register. This is an issue for which my right honourable friend Helen Grant from the other place has campaigned tirelessly, and I pay tribute to her for the effort she has made in bringing this to the forefront of our legislative proposals. It has been requested that this amendment be reserved for a Home Office Bill rather than legislation from the Ministry of Justice, and in these circumstances, and having regard to that undertaking from the Government, I will withdraw the amendment in my name. However, I add that it will be tabled in subsequent legislation in this parliamentary Session to ensure that we do not delay in ensuring that that action is taken.

On Amendment 97 and the submissions from the noble and learned Lord, Lord Thomas of Cwmgiedd, I can say only that I hesitate to intrude to the west of Offa’s Dyke.

[Lord Timpson (Lab)]

I thank noble Lords for their contributions. The questions from the noble Baroness, Lady Smith, on Welsh justice will be part of our ongoing discussions on devolution. I look forward to further discussions on that. I am glad that the noble Lord, Lord Foster, is sufficiently reassured about this Government’s commitment to transparency and accepts the reasons for our not accepting Amendments 59 to 61.

Amendments 59 and 60 (to Amendment 58) not moved.

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[Lord Timpson (Lab)]

I thank the noble and learned Lord, Lord Keen, for tabling Amendments 68 and 69. The noble and learned Lord, Lord Garnier, makes a good point and I will take it back to the department.

We share the commitment to transparency across the justice system, but we do not agree that these amendments are needed. I will first address Amendment 68 and I reassure the noble and learned Lord that the Government are working to significantly improve the transparency of sentencing remarks. In certain cases of high public interest, sentencing remarks are already published online. Sentencing remarks can be and are filmed by broadcasters, subject to the agreement of the judge.

The Government have recently extended provision of free transcripts of sentencing remarks to victims of rape and other sexual offences whose cases are heard in the Crown Court. It remains the case that bereaved families of victims of murder, manslaughter and fatal road offences can request judges’ sentencing remarks for free.

However, expanding this to everyone who applies would be prohibitively expensive. The amendment would create significant operational and resource pressures on the courts and judiciary. It would also require new systems and staff to process requests and manage publication. The cost and complexity would be detrimental to the work we are doing to create an affordable and sustainable justice system.

We are, however, embracing AI and are actively exploring the opportunities it presents to reduce the cost of producing transcripts in the future and to making them far more widely available to victims. While I recognise the intent behind this amendment to promote transparency, sentencing remarks are already accessible through established transcription services.

I now turn to Amendment 69 and again assure noble Lords that this Government remain committed to improving the collection and publication of data on foreign national offenders. We have already taken action to increase transparency on the data published. As I have discussed with the noble and learned Lord, Lord Thomas, we are developing and publishing more data specific to prisons and probation in Wales. Notably, in July 2025, for the first time, the offender management statistics included a breakdown of foreign national offenders in prison by sex and offence group.

We are also working closely with colleagues in the Home Office to enable earlier identification of foreign national offenders. Currently, this is routinely done after sentence when cases are referred to the Home Office. Being able to verify the nationality of offenders ahead of sentencing would facilitate more timely removals and provide an opportunity for enhanced data collection. However, methods to verify any information provided must be cost effective and prevent placing additional pressure on operational staff. Investment in digital and AI tools can help us to collect, analyse and publish more data, but we are still building this capability.

For that reason, we cannot accept a statutory duty to publish this information before the necessary operational and technical infrastructure is in place to deliver it. If noble lords are interested in wider data specifically related to prisons, I can highly recommend the Prison Reform Trust’s Bromley Briefings Prison Factfile publication, which draws on data, including regarding foreign national offenders, from a wide range of sources. It is free and is online.

I hope I have reassured noble Lords about this Government’s commitment to transparency and explained why the Government do not support these amendments. I urge the noble and Learned Lord to withdraw his amendment.

[Lord Keen of Elie (Con)]

My Lords, Amendment 68 is modest, targeted and proportionate. It would bring much-needed consistency to our justice system. As the Minister observed, transcripts of sentencing are already provided to victims of rape and certain specified offences. There is no principled reason why victims of other serious or traumatic crimes should be treated differently. Victims of offences such as aggravated assault or aggravated burglary may be unable to attend a sentencing and should not have to pay to understand the court’s reasoning with regard to sentencing. It appears to us that Amendment 68 addresses a clear and, frankly, unfair gap in the law. In these circumstances, I seek to test the opinion of the House on Amendment 68.

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[Lord Marks of Henley-on-Thames (LD)]

My Lords, we cannot accept that this amendment is either necessary or right. The Bill is posited on the earned progression model, which involves a phased system of early releases. It is all very well for the noble Baroness, Lady Fox of Buckley, to say that she cannot stand the idea that there will be early releases because of overcrowding, but the fact is that we have a very serious issue which the Bill seeks to address. I, for one, accept the Government’s position that the Bill would be seriously damaged by abandoning the earned progression model in the cases with which this amendment is concerned.

No one can say that, as a party, the Liberal Democrats are not completely committed to the Government’s target to end violence against women and girls, or at least to halve it within a decade. No one can say that we do not take that commitment seriously. We accept that sexual offences are serious offences, but there are many other serious offences as well. The point that I suggest should weigh with the House very heavily is the concern for the position of victims. If this Bill fails to solve the prison capacity crisis then victims will be the losers, as people cannot be brought to justice or imprisoned because there will simply be no space for them. That is the harsh reality.

The position on early release is exactly the same as the reasons that I gave in respect of the first group about the presumption. It requires us to be tough and to resist the blandishments of the sort of points that the noble Baroness, Lady Fox, made. I do not accept the accuracy of the position taken by the noble and learned Lord, Lord Keen, because we would be left with a dangerous problem that we have to solve, so I shall support the Government in opposing the amendment.

[Lord Timpson (Lab)]

My Lords, this debate is about a central purpose of the Bill: to put the prison system on a sustainable footing. There is no doubt that the offences listed in Amendment 74 and referenced in Amendment 75 are serious crimes. Indeed, they are so serious that many perpetrators of these offences will receive life or extended determinate sentences.

I remind noble Lords that there are 17,000 prisoners serving those sentences, convicted of the most serious crimes. They include many serious sexual offenders. These offenders will be unaffected by the reforms we are bringing forward in this Bill. They will remain in prison as long as they do now.

Amendments 74 and 75 raise a more fundamental issue. Are we willing, as the previous Government clearly were, to leave the prison system on the brink of collapse? This did not happen overnight. It was not inevitable. It was the choice the party opposite made again and again for 14 years. They abandoned their posts and put public safety at risk by allowing prisons to reach bursting point. To cover up their failures, they covertly let out more than 10,000 prisoners early as part of their chaotic scheme. If it were not for the decisive action of this Government, the police would have been unable to make arrests and courts unable to hold trials, which would have been a breakdown of law and order unlike anything we have seen in modern times. We must continue to take decisive action to address the consequences of their mismanagement. If these amendments were to pass, they would undermine the fundamental issue that the Bill is designed to fix —the issue they neglected for 14 years.

I took this job to fix this issue and countless others that we inherited. As someone who has dedicated their working life to improving the criminal justice system, it matters to me personally. I am convinced that this Bill is the only and best way to fix this problem. I refuse to stand in front of victims of serious crimes, look them in the eye and tell them that we have no space in our prisons to lock up dangerous offenders and that their rapist or abuser cannot go to prison at all because there is no space. Let me be very clear: running out of space is the consequence if these amendments pass. I hope that all noble Lords will agree with me that we cannot, in good conscience, vote for amendments that we know will cause such great harm. Our immediate priority must be stability, and that is what our measures deliver. We are building more prison places than at any time since the Victorian era. By the end of this Parliament there will be more people in prison than ever before. I recall that the previous Government managed only 500 extra places in 14 years.

I thank the noble Lord, Lord Marks, for his constructive engagement on this amendment and for raising important questions about how victims will be protected. I remind noble Lords that, once released, offenders will be subject to a period of intensive supervision supported by a significant expansion of electronic tagging. The highest-risk offenders, as assessed by probation, will continue to be actively supervised until the end of their sentence. They will continue to be subject to any licence conditions needed to manage risk and protect victims, including restriction zones where appropriate. All offenders will remain on licence with the possibility of recall to custody if they breach the terms of their licence. Of course, if an offender behaves badly in custody, they will spend even longer inside, up to the full length of their sentence.

As noble Lords know, the proposals for the progression model, which Clause 20 seeks to implement, are the result of extensive work by the Independent Sentencing Review. The review, led by David Gauke and supported by a panel of eminent experts from all parts of the criminal justice system, arrived at its recommendation after extensive research and consultation. All proposals, including the new framework for release, have been thoroughly considered. We now need to put in place an effective release framework that will support a sustainable prison estate and protect the public by ensuring that space is prioritised for the most dangerous offenders. I therefore urge the noble and learned Lord not to press Amendments 74 and 75. If he wishes to test the opinion of the House, I encourage all noble Lords to vote against this amendment and help this country end the cycle of crisis in our prisons for good.

Dangerous offenders are also the subject of Amendment 90 tabled by my friend, the noble Lord, Lord Carter. It proposes that extended determinate sentences should include a progression element that would enable the parole eligibility date to be brought forward. While I thank the noble Lord for raising this important issue, the Government’s position remains that prison is the right place for these dangerous offenders. To receive an extended determinate sentence, a specified violent, sexual or terrorism offence must have been committed. The court will also have decided that the offender is dangerous—I repeat, dangerous—and that there is a significant risk of serious harm to the public from the offender committing a further specified offence. These dangerous offenders must remain in prison for as long as they do now. I ask the noble Lord not to move his amendment.

[Lord Keen of Elie (Con)]

My Lords, we do not oppose an earned progression model in principle but, as was recognised by all parties in the other place, Clause 20 does not deliver an earned progression model. Clause 20 contains no mechanism for earning release. That is not, or at least it was not until recently, a party-political point. The House of Commons Library confirmed that release occurs automatically at the one-third or halfway point for offenders. Barring serious further offences in custody, release is guaranteed.

The noble Lord, Lord Marks, talked repeatedly about the earned progression model. I do not know which one he was referring to, but it is not the one in Clause 20. That is simply a mystery. What we have is a means by which violent and dangerous individuals will be released after they have served one-third of the sentence imposed by a court. Is that supposed to imbue our justice system with public confidence? Automatic early release for serious offenders is bound to undermine that confidence.

While the Minister may make criticisms of prison capacity and what occurred during the previous 14 years of government, I remind him that two wrongs do not make a right. You do not cure one mistake by committing an even worse mistake, and that is what is being proposed here. Automatic early release is going to endanger the public. It ensures that releases apply to offenders whose crimes are serious and dangerous. It is not proportionate, it is not targeted and it is not possessed of any safeguards. I wish to test the opinion of the House.

Sentencing Bill

Lord Timpson Excerpts

Committee stage
Wednesday 3rd December 2025 Lords Chamber

Moved by

[Lord Timpson]

120: Clause 30, page 57, line 17, at end insert—
“(4A) In section 244(1A) (duty to release prisoners not subject to special provision for release), for “and”, in the second place it occurs, substitute “to”.”Member's explanatory statement
This amendment is consequential on the insertion by clause 29 of the new section 255BA of the Criminal Justice Act 2003 (automatic release from recall) and ensures that section 244(1A) of that Act, which cross refers to the recall provisions, includes a reference to this new section.

[The Minister of State, Ministry of Justice (Lord Timpson) (Lab)]

My Lords, Amendment 120 is in my name. I will also speak to Amendments 123 and 124 in my name. These three amendments are minor and technical, and we have tabled them as small but necessary changes to ensure that the Bill functions as intended. I begin by explaining the changes to Clause 29 through Amendment 120. This is a necessary technical amendment which ensures that the new automatic release from recall regime is integrated into the legislative framework and functions as needed. The changes to Clause 34, through Amendments 123 and 124, are also technical. They update cross-references so that existing powers which allow the Secretary of State to amend the number of hours specified in an unpaid work requirement continue to function correctly in light of the amendments made by Clause 34. I beg to move.

[Lord Sandhurst (Con)]

I thank the Minister for his series of drafting amendments, which seek to tidy up the language and cross-references in the Bill. We on these Benches do not oppose the amendments, which will make things clearer for anyone reading the Bill in future.

[Lord Timpson (Lab)]

I thank the noble Lord for his view on these minor and consequential amendments.

Amendment 120 agreed.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Sandhurst (Con)]

My Lords, I will speak briefly to Amendment 122, in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Marks of Henley-on-Thames, which concerns the power of the Probation Service to vary residence requirements and associated conditions of supervision.

I begin by saying that we on these Benches appreciate the intention behind the amendment. The ability to move an offender from one address to another, particularly where there is a risk to a partner, former partner or family member, is plainly necessary in some circumstances. The Probation Service must have the tools to protect victims and to manage offenders effectively. This amendment seeks to provide a clearer statutory framework for doing so.

The amendment rightly provides that, where the Probation Service makes any such variation, it must return to the sentencing court for approval within 14 days of the confirmation. That is an important safeguard; the offender, the interested parties and the court must all be properly kept in the picture. However, we would welcome greater clarity from the Minister on how, in practice, the Probation Service would assess necessity, ensure proportionality and manage the additional administrative and supervisory burdens that such powers might create. Probation must also be properly resourced and supported.

We are also mindful that changing an offender’s residence could have profound consequences, not only for supervision and risk management but for the offender himself, in the form of employment, family ties and wider stability that underpins rehabilitation. The threshold for such a direction must therefore be robust, evidence-based and truly transparent.

In that spirit, I hope the Minister can reassure the Committee that the objectives behind this amendment—protecting victims and enabling better offender management—are achievable within existing powers, or, if not, that the Government will consider whether a more tightly defined mechanism might be appropriate. We are grateful to the noble Lord for raising these issues, and we look forward to hearing the Government’s response.

[Lord Timpson (Lab)]

My Lords, it is, and should remain, the role of the court in sentencing to determine the requirements that should apply to a particular community sentence and how they are varied. As the noble Lord, Lord Marks, set out, it is vital that risk is managed quickly and effectively. This is particularly important in cases where, for example, domestic abuse is of concern.

Where an individual has been sentenced to a community or suspended sentence, probation practitioners undertake comprehensive assessments to ensure that risk is identified throughout an order and managed early. This means that they can take appropriate action to respond to that risk, ensuring offenders are monitored effectively. This includes applying to the court, where appropriate, which has powers to vary the requirements of a sentence, including the powers to revoke a community order and to resentence, where it would be in the interests of justice.

We are creating a new domestic abuse flag at sentencing so that domestic abusers are more consistently identified. This helps prison and probation services manage offenders effectively and ensures that victims are better protected. Before making a relevant order containing a residency requirement, the court must consider the home surroundings of the offender.

The court can already give probation the power to approve a change of residence when requested by the offender—for example, where an offender would like to move closer to where they were undertaking a programme or to their place of employment. Offenders released on licence from a custodial sentence can already be required to comply with residence obligations. These can be varied as required, either by probation or the Parole Board, as appropriate, depending on the offender’s sentence.

To be clear, if an offender fails to comply with the terms and conditions of an order, they can be returned to court to face further penalties, including custody. I hope the noble Lord will agree that there are sufficient existing processes in place, and I urge him to withdraw his amendment.

[Lord Marks of Henley-on-Thames (LD)]

I am not sure that I understand the rationale for saying that there are already existing powers in the Probation Service. That is something I wish to talk to the Minister about, and I am sure he will be happy to do that. We are very keen that the Probation Service be trusted to make such alterations on its own, subject to the approval of the sentencing court. We absolutely agree on that. However, currently I am not quite sure where the Government stand on this. It appears to me that they are too reliant on the sentencing court and too little reliant on the Probation Service, but I am sure that that is something we will discuss. While we discuss that, I beg leave to withdraw this amendment.

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[Lord Keen of Elie (Con)]

My Lords, the principle of deportation of foreign national offenders attracts almost universal support. I say “almost” because the cohort of foreign national offenders may not entirely embrace the idea. However, if we introduce a system whereby they are deported without custody or punishment, I suspect that they will come on board with the idea as well.

It occurs to me that the Government are going to approach this with considerable and conspicuous care and take on board the very considered amendment advanced by the noble Lord, Lord Verdirame, and Amendment 142 from the noble Lord, Lord Jackson. It will, as the noble and learned Lord, Lord Thomas of Cwmgiedd, said, come back to bite us if it is discovered by very professional criminals that you can come here, execute your robbery, contract killing or whatever else and then, when you are caught, we pay your air fare home. It does not make an awful lot of sense.

With regard to Northern Ireland, I would take Amendment 146 as a probing amendment inviting the Minister to explore the impact of the Windsor Framework on this proposal.

I note that, if a foreign national offender in Northern Ireland is offered the option of deportation or lengthy custody in Northern Ireland, he might well be inclined to the former, but that is just a practical proposal. I look forward to hearing the Minister’s response.

[Lord Timpson (Lab)]

I start by thanking noble Lords and the noble and learned Lord for tabling their amendments, their interest in this topic and their considered words. I reassure the noble Lord, Lord Verdirame, that prisoner transfer agreements are very important. A few weeks ago, I went to Albania and met the Justice Minister and consulate colleagues to reiterate how important it is and to see what more we can do.

Our priority is to protect victims in the UK and ensure that these offenders can never again offend here. Once deported, offenders will be barred from ever returning to the UK, protecting victims and the wider public.

I will address the amendments in turn. Amendment 122A, limiting the early removal scheme to those in receipt of a sentence of less than three years, would mean a more restrictive early removal scheme than we currently operate. On the point made by the noble and learned Lord, Lord Thomas, on foreign national offenders, there are more than 3,200 FNOs who would not be eligible for removal under Section 260 because they are serving a fixed-term sentence greater than three years. The impact on our ability to manage prison capacity would be substantial. We already transfer prisoners to serve the remainder of their sentence in their home country under prisoner transfer agreements, where they are in place.

However, these are not suitable in all cases, and it is important that we retain multiple paths for removal to reduce prison capacity and speed up removals, especially when you consider that it costs an average of £54,000 a year to house these offenders. Once removed, FNOs are barred from ever returning to the UK, keeping victims and the wider British public safe.

The early removal scheme remains a discretionary scheme that will not be suitable for all foreign national offenders, and we are reviewing the existing guidance that includes a range of reasons it can be refused.

The “stop the clock” provision means that those who re-enter the UK in breach of their deportation order, following an ERS removal, are liable to serve the remainder of their sentence here.

I reassure the noble Lord, Lord Verdirame, that we are working with the Home Office to revise the policy framework that underpins the scheme and ensure that clear operational guidance is in place before the measure is commenced. I am happy to write to the noble Lord on his detailed questions. The eligibility of those who have returned after a previous removal is one consideration, as is the commitment made in the other place to consider those convicted of stalking offences.

Amendment 142, tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Jackson, seeks to introduce immediate deportation for foreign nationals given sentences of at least six months. This would require the Government to make an immediate deportation order in respect of persons who have committed less serious offences. In the Bill, we are extending automatic deportation to persons given a suspended sentence of 12 months or more.

We will also increase the deportation consideration threshold to include anyone given a suspended sentence of any length. In this, the Government are going further than any previous Government in tackling foreign criminality. We have ramped up the removals of foreign criminals, with almost 5,200 deported since July 2024—an increase of 14% compared with the same 12 months previous.

However, just as we no longer transport convicts to the other side of the world for stealing a loaf of bread, we do not think it appropriate to have immediate deportation for less serious crimes in the way proposed by the noble Lord. Lowering the threshold in the way that his amendment does would result in a disproportionate duty to deport for low-level offending. It would lead to significantly more appeals being made against such decisions, arguing exceptionality. It would increase the operational burden to pursue deportation in cases where it was unlikely to be successful because the offending was relatively minor.

On Amendment 146, I thank the noble Lord, Lord Jackson, and the noble Baroness, Lady Hoey, for their understanding of my lack of knowledge on the intricate details of the Windsor Framework. In fact, I think that when the Windsor Framework was going through Parliament, I was very happily running a shoe repair business.

This amendment seeks to disapply parts of the withdrawal agreement and Article 2 of the Windsor Framework in relation to the automatic deportation provisions in the UK Borders Act 2007. I think that the intention behind the amendment is to ensure that deportation decisions in Northern Ireland can be taken on the same basis as deportation decisions in the rest of the UK.

It is the Government’s view that Clause 42 is compatible with Article 2 of the Northern Ireland protocol and the Windsor Framework. Therefore, we do not agree that there is a need for this amendment. To reiterate, it is the Government’s view that the deportation of foreign national offenders is not prohibited by these provisions. It is our view that immigration is a reserved matter, and we apply the same immigration laws across the whole of the UK.

I want to reassure the noble Baronesses, Lady Hoey and Lady Lawlor, and the noble Lord, Lord Weir, that foreign national offenders, regardless of where they are in the UK, should be in no doubt that we will do everything to make sure they are not free on Britain’s streets, including removal from the UK at the earliest possible opportunity.

I note that the stated purpose of Amendment 141A as tabled by the noble Baroness, Lady Hamwee, is to probe the effect of Clause 42 on survivors of modern slavery, human trafficking or domestic abuse. I reassure the noble Baroness that the Government take their responsibilities towards vulnerable people very seriously. The Home Office has published guidance on how to identify and support victims of modern slavery and human trafficking. Where removal of a person would breach the UK’s obligations under the Council of Europe Convention on Action against Trafficking in Human Beings, deportation must not proceed. Victims of domestic abuse whose relationship has broken down can apply for permission to settle in the UK permanently. Victims of domestic abuse who meet the threshold for deportation will be considered for deportation in the same way as other persons.

I am grateful to the noble Baroness for the opportunity to set out the Government’s position regarding the impact of Clause 42 on people who have a reasonable claim to be a victim and survivor of modern slavery, human trafficking or domestic violence. Such a claim does not amount to immunity from deportation for people convicted of an offence, although in some circumstances temporary permission to stay may be granted to victims of human trafficking or slavery. The changes brought about by Clause 42 will not alter this.

I thank noble Lords and Baronesses for this debate and ask the noble Lord to withdraw his amendment.

[Baroness Hamwee (LD)]

Just briefly, on the point of my amendment, one problem is that people simply do not know what their rights are and find it very hard to find out. However, I wanted to ask the Minister about prisoner transfer agreements—I was wondering whether to raise this earlier in the debate. Is he able to tell the Committee how many are in place, or could he perhaps write to us to give us information about that? I am slightly ashamed to ask this because I am sure that a quick search on the internet would tell me, but I think the noble Lord will be more authoritative.

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[Lord Timpson (Lab)]

I will write to the noble Baroness with exact details. I have quite a few details in my head, but I want to get it right, so I will write.

[Lord Jackson of Peterborough (Con)]

Very briefly, my Lords, I want to thank the Minister for his very helpful, illuminating and quite reassuring answer, which those of us who spoke to Amendment 146 are grateful for.

--- Later in debate ---

Moved by

[Lord Timpson]

123: Clause 34, page 63, line 13, at end insert—
“(d) in paragraph 13(1)(a) of Schedule 23 (power to amend maximum number of hours of unpaid work), for “paragraph 2(1)” substitute “paragraph 2(1A)”.”Member's explanatory statement
This amendment updates a cross reference and is consequential on the amendment made by clause 34(2) (limits on the number of hours in an unpaid work requirement in a community order or suspended sentence order).

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Keen of Elie (Con)]

My Lords, the Government have stated that the aim of this measure is to increase public confidence that justice is seen to be done as more individuals are diverted into the community. They claim that if individuals are seen to be giving back to their community then this will act as a deterrent against committing crime. I wonder whether there is an element of wishful thinking from the Government about this. The ability to take photos of offenders picking up litter is hardly a substitute for the prospect of time in custody.

If the Government intend to enact the substance of the Bill then perhaps any efforts to act as a deterrent are welcome, even a measure as small as this one. However, we would have to ensure that it is exercised properly and with a clear framework around it. Probation officers are already operating under extraordinary strain; they should not be required to improvise policy on a ground such as this, particularly when it has obvious implications for privacy, data protection and public confidence. There would have to be clear statutory guidance on when a photograph may be taken, the safeguards that exist against misuse and the redress that is available if things go wrong. As a number of noble Lords have mentioned, we must also guard against a drift towards humiliation or the selective publication of images in a way that would stigmatise individuals or particular communities.

If the purpose of Clause 35 is to demonstrate that unpaid work is both visible and constructive then the Government would have to ensure that the practice reflects those aims. Perhaps with proper regulation this might be possible, but without that it risks becoming another ill-defined power handed to an already overstretched Probation Service. We urge the Minister to commit to setting out clearly the safeguards and practical requirements that will clearly be required if a clause such as Clause 35 is ever implemented.

[Lord Timpson (Lab)]

I thank the noble Baronesses, Lady Jones and Lady Bennett, and the noble Lords, Lord Marks and Lord Beith, for tabling these amendments and raising their concerns about Clause 35. I also thank the noble Lords, Lord Foster and Lord Bach, for raising their concerns.

I am sure we can agree that people who commit crimes should show that they are giving back to society. This clause is about building public confidence in community sentences. Local communities should know that those who harm them are paying back and be able to see the positive work being done. As my noble friend Lady Chakrabarti pointed out, it is important that they can clearly see the benefits of community payback and have their say on the work undertaken by nominating projects in their area.

I understand there may be concerns about the potential impacts of this measure and I reassure noble Lords that careful consideration is being given to how it is implemented. I have listened to noble Lords’ comments and will take them away to thoroughly consider. I also reassure noble Lords that publication will not apply in all cases. Exemption criteria will be set out in secondary legislation. This will be used alongside clear operational guidance on the circumstances where publishing would not be appropriate. The criteria are to be determined but may include factors such as specific offence types or personal circumstances which present heightened risks to the offender, their families or others. Probation practitioners will use this guidance and their professional assessment to determine the right course of action. We should have confidence that they will use the power only where appropriate. I confirm to noble Lords that I have heard the points they have made and reiterate that we will reflect carefully before Report.

[Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle (GP)]

My Lords, I thank the Minister for his response and take encouragement from the phrase “thoroughly consider”. I hope, speaking as a former newspaper editor, that the noble Lord, Lord Foster, is right that yes, sometimes newspapers are right. We can live in hope.

I thank all noble Lords who have taken part in this debate. The hour is late, but we have had a very clear and engaged debate and a very clear direction of travel, even from the Conservative Front Bench. I think a fair characterisation would be that there is a great degree of scepticism about Clause 35.

I have just a couple of things to pick out. The noble Lord, Lord Marks, made a very important point about the relationship between probation officers and their clients. That really deserves extra consideration. I particularly thank the noble Baroness, Lady Chakrabarti, and the noble Lord, Lord Bach, for bringing their experience and knowledge and bravely delivering a clear message from the Government Benches.

Finally, I note that we have heard from both the current chair of the Justice and Home Affairs Committee and its former chair, the noble Baroness, Lady Hamwee. The messages are coming to the Government from all angles. We reserve the right to bring this back on Report, but I very much hope that will not be necessary. In the meantime, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.

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[Lord Timpson (Lab)]

I thank the noble Lord, Lord Marks, for this amendment, which seeks to give courts an express power to suspend the driving licence of individuals charged with specified driving offences as a condition of bail. We recognise that driving offences can have devastating consequences for victims and for their families and friends. Driving while under the influence of alcohol and drugs is a serious offence with potentially life-changing consequences.

There are already robust powers available to the police and the courts to impose bail conditions where there is a risk to public safety. This includes restrictions on driving where appropriate. In certain cases, courts may also impose an interim driving disqualification before sentencing. Road safety remains an absolute priority for this Government. The Department for Transport will shortly publish a new road safety strategy, and the Secretary of State for Transport has indicated that this will include a review of motoring offences. While I appreciate the importance of the issue raised by the noble Lord, given the forthcoming strategy and existing powers available I urge him to withdraw this amendment.

[Lord Marks of Henley-on-Thames (LD)]

I ask the Minister to consider this. The power to suspend that is sought by this amendment would be a power exercisable by the court and therefore reportable to the DVLA, as a result of which the driving licence would be formally withdrawn. I am not sure that is true of a ban on driving imposed by the police as a part of bail. That is the importance of the suspension that I suggest.

[Lord Timpson (Lab)]

I thank the noble Lord and will very happily meet with him next week to discuss that, as I suspect that there may be other matters that we wish to discuss on this Bill. I would be very appreciative of that.

[Lord Marks of Henley-on-Thames (LD)]

Pending those discussions, I beg leave to withdraw my amendment.

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[Lord Timpson (Lab)]

I am grateful to the noble Baroness, Lady Hamwee, for her amendment and her continued interest in the Women’s Justice Board. I am very proud to chair it and drive its work forward. Noble Lords will be pleased to know that it is going well and I am very fortunate to be working alongside so many talented experts.

This amendment seeks to ensure parliamentary oversight of the board’s activities and outcomes, which would have the effect of subjecting the board to parliamentary scrutiny. As the noble Baroness knows, like her, I have a great interest in women’s justice and fully recognise the importance of transparency in this area. But Parliament already has well-established mechanisms to hold the Government to account, including through parliamentary Questions and Select Committee inquiries.

Reforming the way women are treated in the criminal justice system remains a keen ambition for this Government and for me personally. The expertise provided by the Women’s Justice Board is an important part of shaping our approach to the wider justice system. Although we cannot accept this amendment today, I assure the House that we are committed to keeping Parliament informed and will consider how best to provide periodic updates on the work of the board through appropriate channels. I suspect that one of the best ways we can update noble Lords is through the work we do and the results we get. I hope that this reassurance will enable the noble Baroness to withdraw her amendment.

[Baroness Hamwee (LD)]

My Lords, indeed, the results are what matters. I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.

Sentencing Bill

Lord Timpson Excerpts

Committee stage
Wednesday 3rd December 2025 Lords Chamber

[Lord Sandhurst (Con)]

We are saying that the relevant technology has to be available for this to work. It might be that it could be done on a regional basis, but the important thing is that it is not introduced somewhere where there is not the ability to make it work.

[The Minister of State, Ministry of Justice (Lord Timpson) (Lab)]

I would like to begin by thanking noble Lords for giving the Committee the opportunity to debate the capacity of the criminal justice system. I must of course start by saying that this Bill is a necessary step towards ensuring that we have a sustainable justice system.

I turn first to Amendment 88, tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Foster of Bath. I reassure noble Lords that this Government are committed to greater transparency on prison capacity. We showed this by publishing the first annual statement last December, and we will shortly publish the 2025 edition. However, setting the timing of publication and the content of the report in primary legislation would create unnecessary rigidity. Our goal is to increase transparency without compromising flexibility.

I now turn to the amendments that address the issue of capacity within the Probation Service. I am pleased that this gives me another opportunity to pay tribute to our incredible probation staff, who work tirelessly to keep the public safe. I am proud to be their colleague.

I begin by recognising the close interest of probation trade unions in Amendment 134, tabled by my noble friend Lord Woodley. I greatly value our ongoing engagement and meaningful consultations; their input will continue to inform our approach. I also thank my noble friend for mentioning the two horrendous attacks on our probation staff in Preston and Oxford. These are fine public servants who turn up to work to protect the public; they, and all probation staff, should not be in fear of their safety. I send both my colleagues best wishes for their recovery.

We recognise HM Inspectorate of Probation as a key stakeholder and value its involvement in implementing the provisions of this Bill, but it is important to preserve its independence as an inspectorate. This amendment risks shifting the inspectorate towards a regulatory role, compromising its independent scrutiny.

While we are sympathetic to Amendment 139A, we fear it would duplicate existing reporting mechanisms and risk delaying measures in the Bill that would themselves improve probation capacity. We already have strong and independent scrutiny, and ensure transparency on probation case loads and staffing through various publications. For example, HMPPS publishes quarterly reports covering probation staffing and case loads.

As the noble Baroness, Lady Jones, noted, the National Audit Office has conducted a thorough analysis of probation capacity, and this is informing a Public Accounts Committee inquiry. However, a further statutory reporting requirement, particularly one imposed within three months of Royal Assent, would duplicate existing processes and divert resources away from implementation and capacity building. Thanks to the established analysis and reporting processes, we are clear about the challenges facing the Probation Service, and, thanks to the detailed picture on capacity that this data gives us, we are taking swift, targeted action.

As the noble Lord, Lord Foster, correctly predicted, I can inform noble Lords that we are recruiting an additional 1,300 trainee probation officers by March next year and are working hard to retain experienced officers. We are also investing up to £700 million by the final year of the spending review. While the detailed allocations of that money are still to be finalised, I reiterate that my priorities are clear: more people in post, digital investment that saves time and tools for probation to use.

We are starting to see the benefits of an initial £8 million investment in new technology, including an initiative called Justice Transcribe. This cutting-edge AI tool has cut note-taking admin time by around 50%, with outstanding user satisfaction scores. I have heard that probation officers are describing it as life-changing. Furthermore, many of the measures in this Bill will have a positive impact on probation capacity. Delaying these essential reforms while we undertake work proposed by the amendment would not be helpful for our front-line staff.

Amendment 137 speaks to a similar concern about the case loads that our hard-working probation officers manage on a daily basis. While I understand the intent behind this amendment, it is important to recognise that not all probation cases are the same. Imposing a fixed case load limit would not account for these variations; it would make it difficult to manage workloads effectively across the service, it would reduce organisational flexibility and it could undermine the professional autonomy and judgment of our valued practitioners and managers. These top-down limits could therefore potentially lead to unintended delays and bottlenecks, and would serve only to mask the capacity problems I am working to resolve.

On Amendment 119, I reassure the noble Lord, Lord Marks, and the noble Baroness, Lady Hamwee, that the Probation Service already uses digital systems to effectively manage those under probation supervision, but there is a lot more to do here, especially using AI. I believe that its potential is massive.

I thank the noble Lord and the noble Baroness for Amendments 153 and 154, which give me the chance to discuss one of my favourite subjects: the rehabilitation of offenders. Supporting offenders to rehabilitate and stopping the cycle of reoffending is a vital part of ensuring that the new restrictive conditions protect victims. All restrictive measures must accommodate rehabilitative aims such as employment. That way, we will better protect not just a single victim but all victims. So, where there is a rehabilitative purpose, such as driving for employment, practitioners will have the ability to grant permission for this. Restriction zones will be developed to ensure that an offender can access rehabilitative activities, including employment, while, of course, also considering the victim’s needs.

Electronic monitoring is the subject of Amendment 155, in the names of the noble Lord, Lord Sandhurst, and the noble and learned Lord, Lord Keen, and Amendments 93D and 110ZB, in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Foster. This is a vital tool for managing offenders in the community, and there will be a significant uplift in tagging alongside the provisions in this Bill. Where appropriate, electronic monitoring will be applied to support monitoring and compliance with restriction zones. When a restriction zone is not electronically monitored, the Probation Service will monitor offenders’ behaviour and any potential breach. They will have a suite of options available to them to respond to breaches if they identify that offenders have not complied—for example, through police intelligence or victim concerns. Our professionally trained staff are experts in this specialist work, but we do not feel that a report on the practicality of enforcing restriction zones is necessary.

I am grateful to the noble Baroness, Lady Hamwee, for her Amendment 93E. We share the ambition of ensuring that time in custody is used productively to reduce reoffending. Every prison has a legal duty to provide education. This is monitored through the annual HMIP report, regular Ofsted inspections and published prison education statistics. Therefore, a statutory requirement is not necessary. I reassure the noble Baroness that I look at the data regularly, and I challenge it when I am not content.

Lastly, I turn to Amendment 93 and remind noble Lords that we inherited a justice system in crisis, with a court backlog at record levels and rising, and victims waiting years for justice. We have already taken action to tackle court backlogs and improve court productivity. For this financial year, we are funding a record 111,250 Crown Court sitting days to deliver swifter justice for victims—over 5,000 more than the previous Government funded last year. This will mean that more trials and hearings can be heard, tackling the backlog of cases. However, even at maximum capacity, sitting days alone cannot solve the backlog. We need to do things differently. This is why we need fundamental reform, not piecemeal measures.

The previous Lord Chancellor commissioned Sir Brian Leveson to lead an independent review of the criminal courts. We are considering its recommendations carefully before legislating where necessary. This amendment seeks to require an assessment of introducing uncapped Crown Court sitting days for sentencing hearings. However, listing decisions are a judicial function, not an executive one. It is essential to preserve judicial independence in managing court business. Introducing a statutory requirement in this area could be seen as government influencing judicial listing decisions, which would compromise that principle.

I am grateful to noble Lords for bearing with me. I hope I have reassured them about the seriousness with which this Government are taking the issue of capacity. I reiterate my offer to meet with noble Lords before Report.

Finally, I thank the noble Lord, Lord Foster of Bath, who has spotted a drafting error in the Bill and sought to correct it through Amendment 103. He clearly has a bright future in legislative drafting ahead of him. I confirm that the Government accept that this amendment is needed and will not oppose it if the noble Lord wishes to move it formally.

[Lord Foster of Bath (LD)]

My Lords, I reassure the Committee that I will formally move Amendment 103 at a later stage. I thank all noble Lords who contributed to this debate, which has clearly illustrated my main contention that there are many welcome provisions in this Bill but they are unlikely to be delivered unless we address the serious capacity crisis within the MoJ and in particular within HM Prison and Probation Service.

My biggest concern about the Minister’s response, for which I am grateful, relates to my first amendment, Amendment 88, which seeks to give the Government an opportunity to put into practice a commitment that they made at an earlier stage to have a statutory report on capacity every year. The Minister has just said to us that he is not prepared to accept that amendment, whereas I had hoped that he would thank me for drawing attention to the fact that the Government had forgotten something that they had meant to put in the Bill. Instead, he has told us that he is against having a statutory report, because it provides a lack of flexibility.

Therefore, I shall read to the Minister his own Answer to a Parliamentary Question on 20 March 2025, when he said:

“The Government has committed to legislating to make laying the Annual Statement on Prison Capacity before Parliament a statutory requirement in the future, when parliamentary time allows”.


I provided the parliamentary time, but the Minister has not taken it up. Rest assured, I shall return at a later stage to give him another opportunity to accept the commitment that his Government have made. I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.

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[Lord Timpson (Lab)]

I will now address these amendments, which were spoken to very powerfully, on the imprisonment for public protection, or IPP, sentence. As noble Lords know, this is an issue that I also feel very passionately about. I am grateful to my noble friend Lord Woodley for his tireless efforts on this issue and for his amendments, which seek to resentence all IPP sentence individuals. I am also grateful for the reflections from the noble and learned Lord, Lord Hope, on the requirements of a resentencing exercise and thank the noble Baronesses, Lady Bennett and Lady Ludford, for their thoughtful words on this important issue.

I hope it is clear that the reason for not resentencing IPP offenders is to protect the public and safeguard victims. Although we are determined to support those in prison to progress towards safe and sustainable releases, we cannot take any steps that would put victims or the public at risk. Resentencing would result in offenders still in custody being released even when the independent Parole Board has determined—in many cases repeatedly —that they are too dangerous to be released, having not met the statutory release test. My noble friend’s amendments would allow the court to confirm an IPP sentence for those who might have received a life sentence, but this would not prevent the resentencing and release of those who do not fall within the proposed parameters but who the Parole Board have previously assessed as not safe to be released.

The amendments also provide for the substitution of an IPP sentence with a hospital order. However, at the imposition of an IPP sentence, the courts already had the power to issue a hospital order under the Mental Health Act if there was evidence of a mental disorder at the time of the offence being committed. Additionally, if a prisoner now has a severe mental health need to an extent that detention under the Mental Health Act may be appropriate, they will be referred and assessed clinically to determine whether a transfer to a mental health hospital is warranted. This has always been available to those serving the sentence.

Amendment 129, tabled by the noble and learned Lord, Lord Thomas, would provide IPP prisoners with a release date within two years. Again, in this circumstance, individuals would be released who have not been considered safe for release by the Parole Board. The addition to this amendment from the noble Viscount, Lord Hailsham, would provide a limited safeguard. This would allow the Secretary of State to make an application to the Parole Board for the release date to be varied or set aside. However, when considering an application to set aside, the Parole Board would be required to release the prisoner or fix a new release date at the following hearing. The Parole Board already reviews IPP cases at least every two years and, in many cases, more regularly.

We have to remain focused on the best and safest way to support IPP offenders as fast as possible to a safe release. It is important to remember that IPP offenders received their sentence after being convicted of a violent or sexual offence. Therefore, for any decision that removes the protection of the statutory release test, we must be comfortable with the prospect of these offenders living in our communities; that is what we would be demanding of the public.

We know that individuals received the IPP sentence because they committed a sexual or violent offence. Extended sentences were available alongside the IPP sentence, but the sentencing judge decided that an IPP sentence was appropriate for the offender at the time. Under that sentence, a person is released only following assessment by the Parole Board. There would be considerable risk to the public and victims if we released those serving the IPP sentence who are currently in our high-security establishments.

[Lord Moylan (Con)]

My Lords, I hesitate to interrupt, but does the noble Lord accept that, in many cases, especially in the early part of the IPP regime, judicial discretion was almost nil? It was not that the judge determined that an IPP sentence was appropriate; rather, the guidelines given to him said that in certain circumstances, where the offence for which the person had been found guilty and an earlier offence for which they had been convicted appeared on a certain table in a certain configuration, they had no choice but to give an IPP sentence. That is how the sentence was imposed in many cases. There were circumstances where two people were prosecuted for the same crime, which they had carried out together. One of them had a history which brought this table into operation, the other did not. One would get an IPP sentence, the other a determinate sentence appropriate to that crime, although they had both been involved. That point, which is of capital importance, has never been fully recognised by the Ministry of Justice. Judicial discretion was not exercised or exercisable in the case of many of these sentences.

[Lord Blunkett (Lab)]

Before my noble friend on the Front Bench replies, could he also reflect that this took place on a Court of Appeal ruling two years after the implementation of the Act in 2005? That judgment then determined the hearings and therefore the sentences granted by judges, consequent on that Appeal Court ruling.

[Lord Timpson (Lab)]

I thank noble Lords for their helpful comments, which explain why this is such a difficult and important area. We need to keep the public safe, but we also need to keep working as noble Lords to try to do what we can to address this situation.

I welcome the thoughts of the noble Lord, Lord Berkeley, and the noble and right reverend Lord, Lord Sentamu, on the importance of supporting IPP offenders.

[Lord Thomas of Cwmgiedd (CB)]

Might I say to the Minister that I set the history of all of this out in a judgment? If only his officials would read it and understand, we would not be in the mess that he has been placed in.

[Lord Timpson (Lab)]

I will take the noble and learned Lord’s comments away and read that again, but that is also why our quarterly Peers’ meetings on IPP are so important in discussing all these topics.

We must do all that we can to support all IPP prisoners to reduce their risk and progress towards a release decision, but I would not be doing my job to protect the public if they were to be released without the independent Parole Board deciding it is safe to do so. My hope is that every IPP prisoner gets the opportunity to be released and have a successful life in the community, but we need to do that in a way that sets those prisoners up for success in the community. The Government’s view is that any change that removes the protection of the statutory release test is not the right way to do this.

I am aware of criticism of some parts of the IPP action plan, including those raised by the noble Lord, Lord Marks, but it remains my view that the steps we are taking through it are the best way to support this progression. It has contributed to a 10% reduction in the IPP prison population in the 12 months to 30 September 2025. The number of people who have never been released fell by around 14% in the same period. Since the publication of the first action plan in April 2022, the unreleased IPP population has fallen by 39% and is now below 1,000. The focus that I and colleagues have on the IPP action plan means that I need to do more and more work on it, to see where we can add improvements all the way.

I am grateful to my noble friend Lord Blunkett for his amendments, which seek to allow the Secretary of State to make provision for the automatic re-release of those serving an IPP or DPP sentence who are recalled to prison. My noble friend will be aware of the deep respect I have for his ongoing commitment, drive and tenacity to do all he can to support those serving the IPP sentence. I greatly value his contribution to today’s debate, as well as the thoughtful insights and individual cases he raises with me outside the House.

I appreciate that noble Lords have questioned why we are introducing fixed-term recalls for offenders serving standard determinate sentences but do not accept this change for IPP offenders. There are two crucial differences: the threshold for recall and the level of risk that the offender poses. IPP offenders can be recalled only for behaviour or breaches of their licence that are causally linked to their offending. That is a high bar, and one higher than for recalling prisoners serving standard determinate sentences. I must remind noble Lords what that means in practice: that the Probation Service no longer believes that controls available in the community are sufficient to manage that offender’s risk to keep the public safe, and that the public are therefore at risk of further sexual or violent offending.

A fixed-term recall for IPP offenders would not provide sufficient time for an individual to demonstrate that their risk had reduced, or to receive the required support to reduce their risk, before being automatically re-released. This would put victims and the public at risk. While we will return to the question of recall in more detail later in this debate, I must remind noble Lords that we have built significant safeguards into our fixed-term recall changes. These mean that many offenders who pose a similar risk to IPP offenders recalled to prison are also not eligible for a fixed-term recall.

The Victims and Prisoners Act 2024 introduced a power for the Secretary of State to release recalled IPP prisoners where it is no longer necessary for the protection of the public that they should remain in prison. This is referred to operationally as release after a risk assessed recall review, or RARR. Recalled IPP offenders have already been re-released using this power, when they were due to wait for a number of months before their scheduled oral hearing before the Parole Board.

The revised IPP action plan, published on 17 July this year, now includes a commitment to enable swift re-release following a recall through RARR, where it is safe to do so. This means that HMPPS is considering all IPP offenders recalled for being out of touch, or in relation to allegations of further offences, for RARR, and is trialling an extended referral period to allow more time to consider cases for potential use of RARR before referral to the Parole Board. I respectfully suggest that this power means we already have the ability to do what the noble Lord’s amendment seeks to achieve: a quicker re-release of recalled individuals where it is safe to do so.

I am also grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Moylan, for his amendment, for my noble friend Lord Blunkett’s reflections on it and for their ongoing interest in this important issue. The noble Lord’s amendment seeks to allow a prisoner whose licence is not terminated by the Parole Board at the end of the relevant qualifying period to make an annual application to the Parole Board for consideration of licence termination. The Victims and Prisoners Act 2024 made significant changes to the IPP licence period by reducing the qualifying period for referral to the Parole Board and introducing a provision for automatic licence termination. This automatic provision provides greater certainty to offenders than the annual referrals about when their licence will terminate, which is also important for victims. These changes have resulted in the number of people serving a sentence in the community falling by 65%.

Furthermore, at the four-year point after initial release, if supervision is not suspended or the licence is terminated by the Parole Board at the end of the three-year qualifying period, probation practitioners can further consider applying for suspension of supervision at their own discretion. We must also consider the potential effect on victims of going through an additional Parole Board review just a year after the previous one, but I acknowledge that the noble Lord’s amendment would preserve the role of the Parole Board in this process. I am happy to have further conversations with him and other noble Lords on this point in the coming weeks.

I thank noble Lords for their work on this important issue, and I hope that they are assured not only of the work that we are currently undertaking but of our absolute resolve to make further progress for those serving the IPP sentence. I will continue to work closely with noble Lords and look forward to seeing them at the upcoming round table, and to discussing the points raised between now and Report. I urge noble Lords not to press their amendments.

[Lord Keen of Elie (Con)]

Does the Minister agree that the concept of us imprisoning individuals on the grounds of a perception that they may commit a crime at some indeterminate point in the future is utterly anathema to our whole system of criminal justice?

[Lord Timpson (Lab)]

Our expert probation staff who manage the risks in the community are experts in determining the risk that offenders pose, including IPP offenders. It is therefore their professional judgment and their decision whether they recall someone or not.

[Lord Woodley (Lab)]

My Lords, I would like to take this opportunity to apologise for my stumble at the beginning. My inexperience in the process here got in the way. Having listened to all the contributions, some of them were very emotional and some heart-rending, but I am quite certain that did not change the tremendous contribution that each and every noble Lord has made in here this afternoon.

I was heartfelt as I sat here, as I know that we have dozens and dozens, if not hundreds, of IPP family members—maybe even some prisoners—watching this today, hoping for maybe more than the Minister has just said. I will come back to that in a moment. Nevertheless, listening to the noble and learned Lord, Lord Thomas, and the noble Lords, Lord Moylan and Lord Blunkett—indeed all the other Lords who contributed—I think that the experience was absolutely unbelievable.

It is a shame that, while the Minister has listened to them, he has come up with exactly the same answer that I predicted at the very beginning, which is more and more reasons why we cannot do the right thing. There is no doubt at all about that in my mind: there were more excuses for allowing people to suffer in prison and more reasons why we will, unfortunately, see more people take their lives, with no hope, because they are still in prison and serving sentences there.

The Minister said that his efforts were to make sure that we protect the public, and I wholeheartedly support that. That is why my amendment for resentencing clearly identifies public safeguards as being at the very forefront of all we want to do.

However, it is not too late. I intend to continue to work with all colleagues and comrades in this Chamber to try to convince the Minister to talk with David Lammy and others and do the right thing on behalf of this group. On behalf of those families, prisoners and all the contributors here this afternoon, I implore the Minister to go away and rethink, re-evaluate and reassess, and, I hope, to come back, as this goes along, with a completely different response to that he has given us again today.

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[Lord Timpson (Lab)]

With the leave of your Lordships, I would like to clarify my comments on Amendment 88, tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Foster. We have already publicly committed to legislation to make this a statutory requirement, and that commitment stands. We are, however, concerned that setting the precise timing for the report’s publication, and its content, in primary legislation may create unnecessary rigidity, but I hope the noble Lord is reassured that we share the intent behind the amendment.

[Lord Foster of Bath (LD)]

My Lords, I thank the Minister for what he has just said. Can he assure your Lordships’ Committee that if he is not prepared to accept my Amendment 88, he will bring forward his own amendment at some later stage in our deliberations to bring into effect the commitment that he has just repeated from the Front Bench?

[Lord Timpson (Lab)]

We may not bring forward an amendment, but we will legislate to make sure this happens.

Amendment 90

Moved by

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Timpson (Lab)]

My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Russell of Liverpool, for this amendment and for raising awareness of the Marie Collins Foundation on the first day of Committee. I am looking forward to meeting a representative of the foundation, with the noble Lord, on this matter, I think in the coming weeks.

The unduly lenient sentence scheme allows any person to request that the Attorney-General consider referring a sentence to the Court of Appeal for review if they believe it is unduly lenient. I have in fact been listening to some very interesting podcasts to learn more about this topic. This amendment would create a specific right for victims of technology-assisted child sexual abuse offences and, where the victim is a child, for their next of kin to apply to the unduly lenient sentence scheme, even where the sentence was imposed in a magistrates’ court. Currently, the unduly lenient sentence scheme covers all indictable-only offences, such as murder, manslaughter, rape and robbery, as well as certain specified triable either way offences sentenced in the Crown Court, including stalking and most child sex offences.

Parliament intended the unduly lenient sentence scheme to be an exceptional power and any expansion of its scope must be approached with great care. The Law Commission is currently reviewing criminal appeals, including the range of offences within the scheme, and expects to publish recommendations in late 2026. When it comes to sentencing for child sexual offences, the data shows significant variation by offence type. Around 20% of offenders convicted of sexual offences against children receive an immediate custodial sentence. This rises to approximately 70% for the most serious crimes, such as sexual assault of a child under 13, familial sexual offences and possession of indecent or prohibited images. These patterns have remained broadly consistent over the past five years.

As I have noted previously in Committee, sentencing decisions in individual cases are for our independent judiciary, guided by robust Sentencing Council guidelines that already address technology-enabled offending. For example, the guidelines require courts to consider intended harm even where no actual child exists and to take account of aggravating factors such as image sharing, abuse of trust and threats. While I fully recognise the importance and severity of the issue raised by the noble Lord, given the exceptional nature of the unduly lenient sentence scheme and the ongoing Law Commission review of criminal appeals, I respectfully ask him to withdraw his amendment.

[Lord Russell of Liverpool (CB)]

I thank the Minister for his response, which was pretty much what I think probably all of us expected. There is a case to be made for looking at this more carefully. The exponential rise in the volume of this type of abuse using technology has outpaced the ability of the system to understand what is going on. It has outpaced the statistics that the Minister mentioned. That is the tip of the iceberg; it does not actually tell one what is going on.

As in so many cases to do with the online world, we are all behind the curve. This is happening now, in plain sight; it is not theoretical. I hope that, in the meetings that we will have, we can explore this more fully and explain the extent and the depth of this and the deeply worrying link that is increasingly being demonstrated between perpetrators abusing online, using images, and then at some point moving on to actual physical abuse of children. I hope that we can explore that in more detail. I thank all noble Lords who contributed and, on that basis, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.

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[Lord Timpson (Lab)]

I thank the noble and learned Lord, Lord Keen, and the noble Lord, Lord Sandhurst, for this amendment, which seeks to exclude a wide range of offences from the new release provisions under Clause 20. The offences listed are serious crimes. Although some are in scope of the progression model, many perpetrators of these offences will receive life or extended determinate sentences, so would not be in scope.

I must start by pointing out that two of the offences—rape of a child under 13 and sexual assault of a child under 13—are already completely outside the progression model. Those convicted of these offences can be given only life, an extended determinate sentence or a sentence for offenders of particular concern.

There are more than 17,000 prisoners serving extended, determinate or life sentences—those convicted of the most serious crimes. We are clear that these offenders will be unaffected by these reforms. Under Clause 20, offenders sentenced for certain sexual or violent offences will be released at the halfway point of their sentence. They will spend even longer inside if they behave badly while in custody, up to their full sentence. This approach, inspired by the effective reform in Texas, reflects incentive schemes widely used across the United States and is the single biggest measure to preserve prison capacity in the Bill.

I must remind noble Lords of the context in which this measure is needed. When this Government came into power last July, we inherited a crisis in our prisons. We were days away from running out of places entirely, from the police having to prioritise which criminals to arrest, and from the criminal justice system failing to deliver the one thing it is for—delivering justice. If prisons run out of space, we fail victims and compromise safety. Without prison space, victims are denied the justice they deserve, and a stable prison population allows for a better regime and outcome for prisoners.

We must ensure that there is always space in prison for dangerous offenders. Our reforms will ensure that those who commit the gravest crimes will continue to face the toughest sentences, and that is possible only if there is enough space to house them. These measures will be crucial to ensuring that we never reach breaking point again; I must respectfully remind the noble and learned Lord that by the end of this Parliament there will be more offenders in our prisons than ever before.

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[Lord Keen of Elie (Con)]

My Lords, I will speak in support of the amendments, as they seek to turn the Government’s earned progression scheme from a superficially attractive promise into a credible and responsible model for rehabilitation and, consequently, for public safety. As drafted, with release contingent only on the absence of serious misconduct, the provision does not amount at all to earned progression; it is simply accelerated release by default.

We know from recent evidence that meaningful rehabilitation in prison, such as through education and vocational training work, is far from universal. Only this year, the Government cut the provision of education services for prisoners by 20%, and for some prisons by up to 60%. The Justice Committee’s 2025 report found that roughly half of all prisoners are not engaged in education or employment programmes, and many remain confined for 22 hours a day. In those conditions, expecting that prisoners will earn their release by default is neither realistic nor responsible.

In that light, it is not only reasonable but imperative to link early release to engagement in meaningful activity. That is what Amendment 94A, tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Bach, seeks to do: it insists that a one-third release point is conditional on participation in meaningful activity. That would ensure that early release is genuinely earned and based on reform rather than simply time served.

Equally, the amendments put forward by the noble Lord, Lord Carter, seek to embed an earned progression principle for both standard and extended determinate sentences, rather than treating release as an automatic milestone after half the sentence has been served. This makes the model proportionate and conditional on real change, rather than automatic and unearned.

If we accept the Bill without amendments to the supposed progression model, we will knowingly legislate to release on terms we cannot expect to support rehabilitation or protect the public. Frankly, that is not reform; that is risk. But, if we accept the amendments in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Carter, we would reprioritise a system that balances the need to manage prison populations with the social imperative of reducing reoffending.

I thank all noble Lords for their submissions on these matters and for the amendments tabled by the noble Lords, Lord Bach and Lord Carter, and I look forward to hearing from the Minister in reply.

[Lord Timpson (Lab)]

My Lords, I am grateful to my noble friend Lord Bach for his amendment, which was supported by the noble Baroness, Lady Lawlor; I thank her for her kind comments about my previous work.

The amendment would allow the Secretary of State to modify the provisions of the Bill by regulations, so that no prisoner is released after serving one-third of their sentence unless they have earned release through purposeful activity. I want all prisoners to be in work or education, if they are able; however, we need to be realistic about what is possible in different types of prisons. Currently, prisoners do not have equal access to the full range of classes and employment required to meet their needs. To confirm, our education budget has been increased by 3%—but, unfortunately, that buys us less education. So, while one is up, the other is down. However, I think there are other things I can do to make improvements in that area.

We also need to be mindful that many prisoners may behave well but still struggle to engage with some activities. There are high levels of mental ill-health, trauma and neurodiversity that should be considered, and we often need to meet these needs before engagement with education and work can be productive. As noble Lords know, this is an area that I am passionate about. Positive change is necessary, but it is better achieved through gradual operational and policy improvements rather than legislative measures. I also agree that the Probation Service is vital to the ongoing support of offenders after release.

I thank the noble Lord, Lord Carter, for Amendments 95 and 128, which address release points for more serious offenders. Regarding Amendment 95, I must clarify that Clause 20 already sets an automatic release point of half way for these offences. Of course, if the offender behaves badly, they could have days added to their sentence. It is essential that the progression model can be implemented quickly and effectively. The best way to do that is via a system which we know works and is legally robust: the existing adjudication system.

Through Amendment 128, the noble Lord also raised an important question about prisoners serving an EDS. It would allow the Secretary of State to refer offenders serving an EDS to the Parole Board for consideration for release at the halfway point of their custodial term. At present, offenders serving an EDS are referred to the board after serving two-thirds of the custodial term, which is a statutory requirement.

The noble Lord’s amendment is similar in effect to a recommendation of the Independent Sentencing Review that the extended determinate sentences should include a progression element that would enable the parole eligibility date to be brought forward to the halfway point. But the Government rejected that recommendation on the basis that, for an offender to receive an extended determinate sentence, the court will have decided that they are dangerous. These are offenders who have committed serious offences, such as rape, other sexual offences or violence against a person. To impose an EDS, the court will have decided that there was a risk of them doing so again in the future. This is not the case with standard determinate sentences. Having seen all the evidence, the trial judge will have imposed a custodial term that reflects the seriousness of the offence. Prison is the right place for dangerous offenders such as these. Our firm view is that they should not be able to achieve an early release through progression and should remain in prison for as long as they do now.

I turn briefly to Amendment 139C in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Jones. I assure the noble Baroness that we monitor the performance of the adjudication system and it remains under constant review. I get regular data on prisons, but I am happy to write to the noble Baroness, Lady Hamwee, with the answers to her question.

We have effective scrutiny structures in place through His Majesty’s Inspectorate of Prisons and independent monitoring boards. They are able to provide valuable insight into the operations of the prisoner adjudication system. To reassure noble Lords, I ask questions about the adjudication system on every prison visit.

As noble Lords are aware, I am passionate about this area and have routinely pressed for improvements, but my view is that this is best achieved through existing monitoring and scrutiny rather than legislation. I urge my noble friend to withdraw his amendment.

[Lord Bach (Lab)]

My Lords, I thank the Minister and all other speakers in this interesting debate on this important part of the Bill. I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Lawlor, and the Opposition Front Bench for their support, and the noble Lord, Lord Marks, although I have one remark for him before I sit down.

The noble Lord accused me, in the nicest possible way, of wanting this to be compulsory. I hoped it was a little bit more careful than that. I am saying that it is for the Government to decide, if progress is made in this area—I venture to think that that might take some time—that they might then bring in a regulation which would have a compulsory element, no doubt with exceptions. My amendment definitely does not seek a compulsory change from the Bill so that it is important that every offender has to have done some purposeful activity. That is not the intention of the amendment; it is to leave it to the Government, but to ask them to bear it in mind when the time is right. Sorry, I put that rather clumsily, but I think he will know what I mean by that.

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[Lord Keen of Elie (Con)]

My Lords, the amendment in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Russell of Liverpool, would make the cause of an offender’s recall a necessary consideration when determining whether the offender should be released at the end of the automatic release period. This is a prudent approach. We do not want people with a record of breaking probation conditions given the chance to do so again after just 56 days. We therefore support the aim of the noble Lord’s amendment.

[Lord Timpson (Lab)]

I thank noble Lords for these amendments and for providing me with the opportunity to clarify the Government’s position on recall reforms. The policy in this Bill is designed to support rehabilitation and reduce the need for future recalls, but recall remains an essential safeguard to protect the public when risk increases. The 56-day period provides more time to undertake a thorough review of an offender’s release plans and licence conditions, ensuring that needs and risks are managed. There is a specific focus on mitigating risks against known victims.

I turn first to the amendment tabled to Clause 26 by the noble Baroness, Lady Jones. The existing recall test set out in operational guidance already provides a clear and robust framework for decision-making. It ensures that recall is used appropriately when risk can no longer be safely managed in the community. Legislation is a blunt and inflexible tool and would create barriers to recall where swift action was needed to protect the public. Let me give a brief illustration. An individual on licence for stalking and harassment begins to show a marked deterioration in their mental health. They commit breaches, entering an exclusion zone and making indirect contact with a victim online. None of those incidents taken alone would have met a rigid statutory test such as imminent risk or persistent non-compliance but, viewed together, they clearly indicate escalating risk.

It is important to note that the clause already includes a power for the Secretary of State to amend the recall power in Section 254 of the Criminal Justice Act 2003, specifically to make provision about the circumstances in which a person may or may not be recalled. This means that there is already flexibility to adjust the recall framework in future should evidence show that further refinement is needed. For these reasons, it is not necessary to legislate to amend the recall threshold at this time, but I am keen to review what more can be done beyond the Bill to bear down on the use of recall and ensure that it is really the last resort.

The offences listed in Amendment 121, tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Marks, and the noble Baroness, Lady Hamwee, are extremely serious. While some of these cases would fall within the scope of the new recall model, many of the perpetrators of the offences referenced are excluded. This is because they will have received life sentences or extended determinate sentences and therefore remain subject to standard recall arrangements. This means that their re-release will be subject to approval by the Parole Board or the Secretary of State.

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[Lord Russell of Liverpool (CB)]

My Lords, can I ask for a bit of advice on the procedure, because we got slightly out of order in this group? Mistakenly, the first four amendments in the group were not moved but were then spoken to. I stood up first and spoke to Amendment 114, so I am not quite sure whether it is me who is meant to reply to the Minister, but if everyone is happy and Jake the clerk is happy, then I am happy.

I thank the Minister for his response, but the Domestic Abuse Commissioner feels that she has genuine reasons for concern. It would be helpful, if the Minister agrees, for him to meet us between now and Report. We feel strongly enough that if we are not able to resolve this to her satisfaction, we will certainly want to bring it back on Report and may take it to a Division.

[Lord Timpson (Lab)]

I am very happy to meet as suggested. It is a very good idea.

[Lord Russell of Liverpool (CB)]

I thank the Minister. On that basis, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.

Sentencing Bill

Lord Timpson Excerpts

Committee stage
Monday 1st December 2025 Lords Chamber

[Lord Sandhurst (Con)]

My Lords, I am grateful for the opportunity to introduce the second day of Committee on the Sentencing Bill. Amendment 51, in my name and that of my noble and learned friend Lord Keen of Elie, proposes a targeted and necessary change to Schedule 21 to the Sentencing Act, dealing with the Sentencing Code. Its purpose is straightforward: to ensure that, where a police or prison officer is murdered because of or in retaliation for their current or former duties, that murder automatically falls within the highest sentencing category—that is, one where a whole-life order is available and, ordinarily, appropriate.

At present, Schedule 21 refers to murders committed “in the course of” the victim’s duty. Those words are too narrow. We suggest that the provision was intended to capture the most egregious attacks on those who serve the public in roles that inherently expose them to danger. However, the phrase

“in the course of … duty”

in the statute has, in practice, been interpreted by the courts in a restrictive manner, excluding cases where an officer is murdered because of, in retaliation for or in consequence of their earlier performance of their official duties—for example, when a murder takes place a while later, after service has ended.

This amendment would correct that anomaly by inserting the essential clarification that, where the motivation for the murder is connected to the officer’s current or former duties, the case will fall within the highest sentencing category. That is legally coherent and morally necessary. Motive is already a well-recognised component of sentencing. It is taken into account in terrorism offences, hate crimes, witness intimidation and organised crime retaliation. It is therefore entirely consistent with the existing principle that the deliberate targeting of an officer because he or she carried out their duty should be regarded as an aggravating feature of the utmost severity.

This amendment would not create a new offence. It would not broaden the law on homicide or interfere with the Law Commission’s wider review. With precision and exclusively, it would ensure that the statutory scheme reflects Parliament’s clear and settled understanding that to murder a police officer or prison officer simply for having done their job is among the gravest crimes known to our law.

Let me speak plainly. We have seen the consequences of the existing drafting. The tragic case of former prison officer Lenny Scott revealed the gap starkly. Lenny Scott, whose widow and father I and others met last week, carried out his duties with integrity in HM Prison Altcourse, Liverpool. In March 2020, he discovered an illegal phone in the hands of a prisoner. He was offered but refused a bribe to turn a blind eye. He duly reported it, and, as a result, not only was the prisoner discovered to have had a phone but it was discovered that he had been having an affair with a woman prison officer—which was pretty serious, if you think about it. For that simple act of professionalism, Lenny received explicit threats at the time that he would be seen to. Those threats were graphic. They contained details about the appearance of his twin boys, who were no older than six years old.

Some years later, on 8 February 2024, after Lenny had left the Prison Service, those threats were put into practice. He was hunted down and murdered—shot as he left a gym class, in a planned act of revenge. It was a murder directly and unequivocally connected to the past performance of his duties. This was a gangland execution intended to punish Lenny for doing his duty and not giving way to what had been asked of him, and to terrify and intimidate other prison officers into doing gangsters’ bidding in the future. Because this crime did not occur in the course of his duty but a couple of years later, the statutory framework failed to treat it as the kind of murder for which Parliament provides the highest penalty and the judge therefore did not pass a whole-life order. This is a clear loophole in the legislation, and I look to the Minister to put it right. How many more Lennies will there be?

Serving officers in prisons and in the police force must know that there is the added protection of whole-life-order deterrence after they have left as well as when they are in active service. How many serving or former officers walk our streets knowing that they will remain potential targets long after they take off the uniform, and knowing that under the law as presently interpreted, their killers may not face the penalty that Parliament intended for those who attack innocent public servants?

We cannot undo the tragedy that happened to Lenny Scott and his family, nor repair the pain, but we can ensure that the law is changed. We can ensure that the sentencing framework recognises that the risks to officers do not end when their shift finishes and certainly do not disappear when they have left the force. When a murder is motivated and driven by the officer’s service, the seriousness, risk and moral culpability are exactly the same. This is a plain gap in the legislation as currently drafted, and it must be closed immediately.

It is very disappointing that this amendment was opposed by the Government on Report in the other place. The Conservatives and the Liberal Democrats together were in rare agreement on this amendment. I urge the Minister not to oppose it.

This amendment is modest in drafting but deep in its importance. It transcends political fault lines. I suggest that there is no reason why any noble Lords should oppose it. It simply makes no sense that a whole-life order can be imposed for the murder of a prison officer while he is a serving prison officer and while he is at work, but not if he is killed on the weekend with his family. This amendment would restore coherence to the statutory scheme and protects those who seek to protect us. I commend it to the Committee.

[The Minister of State, Ministry of Justice (Lord Timpson) (Lab)]

My Lords, it is a great honour to have the opportunity to speak for the Government during the second day in Committee on the Sentencing Bill. I am grateful to the noble and learned Lord, Lord Keen, and the noble Lord, Lord Sandhurst, for drawing attention to this important topic, which I have carefully considered.

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[Viscount Hailsham (Con)]

Can the Minister deal with the point that the noble Lord, Lord Sandhurst, made on the amendment’s proposed provision acting as a deterrence so as to prevent further intimidation of serving prison officers in the Prison Service now?

[Lord Timpson (Lab)]

What happened to Lenny Scott is absolutely appalling, and we need to ensure that we do all we can so that no other prison officers, or previously serving prison officers, have the same fate. We want to work with the Law Commission and to take away the points raised by the noble Lord to discuss them with colleagues. What is important is that we ensure that the public are protected from the people who commit these terrible crimes.

[Lord Sandhurst (Con)]

My Lords, I shall be reasonably brief. Amendment 51 is simple, precise and entirely consistent with established principles of sentencing. It does not create a new offence and, with respect, it does not pre-empt the Law Commission’s broader review. Instead, it addresses a real gap—and, with respect, we do not need the Law Commission to decide whether there is a gap here. Prison officers in particular need this protection. We have seen the tragic consequences, and this is the sort of threat that we are likely to see more of, not less.

We look to the Minister for assurances on this. Otherwise, it will come back on Report. It must be accepted that murdering a police officer or prison officer because of or in the course of their duty is one of the gravest crimes imaginable. The law should reflect this, not simply to punish but to deter. It must deal with and deter against calculated acts of revenge against former officers. Gangland people will learn about this. It will get about in prison. They will know. It will go down the network.

This amendment is significant for the men and women who carry out with integrity the difficult and demanding work of protecting our streets and looking after—I use that phrase advisedly—the prisoners under their care. It is important that we reassure and encourage them. We want the best people to serve in our prisons. We do not want recruitment to be handicapped. What message will it send out if the Government say, “Oh well, if you’re shot down two years later, that doesn’t count. We’ve got to hope that the judge gets it right”? We must provide the right protections throughout the careers of these officers and beyond. We have the opportunity today to close that gap.

I beg leave to withdraw the amendment for now, but it remains very much on the table.

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As to the final point made by the noble Baroness, Lady Fox, I accept that reducing reoffending may be a better term for the public than rehabilitation. Whether that is a rebranding, as was suggested, I am not sure, but this is all about the concept of turning the lives of offenders around, which I know is central to the Minister’s mission

[Lord Timpson (Lab)]

As noble Lords know, I have devoted much of my life and career to criminal justice reform, in particular, how to reduce reoffending. Because of this, I am particularly pleased to have the opportunity to speak to Amendments 52 to 58.

On Amendment 52 on violence against women and girls, as the noble Baronesses, Lady Hamwee and Lady Fox of Buckley, and the noble Lord, Lord Marks, said, this is a serious and complex challenge that demands co-ordinated action. HMPPS works closely with partners to manage risk, protect victims and reduce harm through evidence-based interventions. For more than three decades, HMPPS has led in developing programmes that address attitudes and behaviours linked to offending, alongside specialist psychological support and community tools. Guided by the principles of effective practice, these services target those at medium or high risk, ensuring that resources are focused where they make the greatest impact. We are always considering research findings that we can learn from which show us what reduces reoffending both here and abroad. There is evidence that has shown that the effects of accredited programme participation for low-risk individuals are usually found to be negligible or in some cases negative. Therefore, accredited programmes are not routinely recommended for low-risk offenders.

On Amendments 53 to 58, tabled by the noble and learned Lord, Lord Keen, and the noble Lord, Lord Sandhurst, I reassure the Committee that, as the noble Lord, Lord Marks, reiterated, Clauses 11 and 12 do not remove the court’s sentencing powers. The decision to apply the requirement to an order sits firmly with the court and that will remain the case. For example, as is the case now, where a judge considers it necessary to impose a community or suspended sentence order, it is they who will determine whether to add a probation requirement. The probation requirement will be part of the menu of requirements available to judges to decide to apply to an order. In addition, where a pre-sentence report is requested by the court, the judge will be provided with an indication of an offender’s risk and need, and what intervention they may receive following a more thorough assessment by probation after sentencing.

The removal of court-set RAR days is needed. The evidence shows that RAR is not working effectively. Practitioners are restricted by the current approach, and we know that RAR days sentenced are not always aligned with an offender’s rehabilitative needs. The evidence from our published process evaluation is clear that probation staff and magistrates felt that the RAR was, in some cases, sentenced as a catch-all. I have been told by probation practitioners across the country, from Manchester to the Isle of Wight, that the way the RAR is applied currently, with sometimes an arbitrary number of RAR days being sentenced, restricts their ability to effectively rehabilitate offenders.

We are moving to a model that enables probation practitioners to use their professional expertise to ensure that rehabilitation is tailored to what works. This was a direct recommendation in David Gauke’s sentencing review report. The removal of court-specified maximum days will ensure that probation resources are directed to where they will have the most impact. Decisions will always be led by a thorough assessment of risk and need after sentencing. This does not change the fact that offenders are required to comply with the instructions of their probation officer. If they do not comply, they could face a return to court and receive tougher penalties.

I agree that it is important that we are clear on how the probation requirements will be applied. That is why clear guidance will be in place to support practitioners in their assessment, and on how to deliver the change. We should trust our valued practitioners to make informed decisions about rehabilitation activity in the same way they do with supervision. It is important that they have the flexibility to do so without placing an extra burden on them to justify each decision to the court. The noble Baroness, Lady Fox of Buckley, mentioned probation plans. On the first day of Committee last week, I mentioned that I am happy to present the plans for probation to noble Lords. I have already had one noble Lord take me up on the offer, and others are welcome.

Data is published annually on the completion of some community requirements, and it would not be proportionate to legislate at this time to publish further specific data on the probation requirement, as proposed by the noble Lords. We keep under regular review what data is collected and published, especially in the era of AI. I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Foster, that quality up-to-date information is important to inform management and policy. The way I have run my businesses in the past, and the way I am trying to do my job as a Minister in the Ministry of Justice, is by using data to hold people to account, because we need to keep improving performance so that we can improve public confidence in the justice system.

In light of this information and the reassurances I have provided on the intention of these clauses, I urge the noble Lords not to press their amendments.

[Baroness Hamwee (LD)]

I for one would really welcome a discussion with the noble Lord; I did not realise that we should use this occasion to accept the invitation. Perhaps at the same time, I should use an opportunity to talk to him more about what the organisation with which I am connected has succeeded in doing on healthy relationships.

Perhaps “mandatory” was misplaced in my amendment. It is more than education and more than having people sitting in a classroom being told. Nothing is a complete answer in this area—I think we are all aware of that—but I am talking about one-to-one connection and contact, which has to be built up over a long period before it can be effective. Therefore, it is really something more detailed and full than I dare say I was giving the impression of. I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Sandhurst, for supporting the amendment, but I beg leave to withdraw it.

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This is the case for this entire group of amendments. The poll that I cited demonstrates that we must do more, even if the changes are small and incremental. The public should know who are committing the crimes, whether they are being adequately dealt with and whether the measures the authorities use are working. These are the aims of my noble friend’s amendments, and we on these Benches support them.

[Lord Timpson (Lab)]

My Lords, I thank noble Lords and noble Baronesses for the opportunity to discuss these important amendments as part of a fascinating debate; they have certainly covered a lot of ground. Transparency in the criminal justice system is vital. We must strike a balance between promoting understanding and accountability without compromising the integrity of our public services or creating unnecessary burdens for those working in them.

I turn first to Amendment 58A in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Hamwee, but, before I begin, I must acknowledge noble Lords’ important questions on funding for the Probation Service—a crucial part of delivering the reforms in this Bill. As noble Lords know, we are investing up to £700 million in the final year of the spending review, which is an increase of 45%. As I said at Second Reading, although detailed allocations are yet to be finalised, my priorities are clear: more people in post; digital investment that saves time; and tools for probation to use. These will all make the jobs of our hard-working probation staff more manageable and rewarding. I repeat my offer to noble Lords to arrange a session in the coming weeks to take them through this in more detail.

I am grateful to the noble Baroness, Lady Hamwee, and the noble Lord, Lord Marks, for raising important points regarding the availability of activities and treatments for probation requirements. I assure the noble Baroness and the noble and right reverend Lord, Lord Sentamu, that we are enabling probation practitioners to use their professional expertise to ensure that rehabilitation is tailored to what works. To do this, we will have guidance and training in place to ensure that they are clear on how decisions should be made and how to deliver them. This includes what interventions are needed and when to refer an offender to a specialist support service; so, if an offender whose offending is driven by addiction is sentenced to a probation requirement, their probation officer will be pointed to the right interventions to address any factors that could lead to that behaviour.

The noble Baronesses, Lady Porter, Lady Fox and Lady Hamwee, rightly mentioned the availability of treatments. It is critical that offenders have access to the right activities and treatments to support their rehabilitation. That is why the Ministry of Justice works closely with NHS England and the Department of Health and Social Care to ensure that all offenders who need it have access to high-quality mental health, alcohol and drug treatment. DHSC has made a targeted investment to support those referred by the criminal justice system, including funding 575 drug and alcohol workers with criminal justice specialisms. They work closely with prisons and probation services and in courts, as well as with the police, to improve access to, and the quality of, treatment.

Our ongoing partnership with NHS England has achieved an increase in the number of mental health treatment requirements. The number sentenced now is more than five times higher than it was a decade ago: it is up from 960 in 2014 to 4,880 in 2024. The noble Baroness, Lady Hamwee, knows that I am always available to speak to the House about how we are ensuring that these treatments are accessible and funded. Given that, I hope that she agrees with me that a statutory requirement to publish an annual report is unnecessary.

Amendment 139B would require the Secretary of State to lay an annual report before Parliament on levels of reoffending by offenders who have completed a community or custodial sentence. Reducing levels of reoffending to cut crime and ensure fewer victims is at the very heart of both this Bill’s purpose and why I took this job. The evidence is clear, and we are following it. Offenders given a community order or suspended sentence order reoffend less than similar offenders given a short prison sentence. We are exploring how we can evaluate the impact of the Bill’s provisions on key outcomes, including levels of reoffending. In the meantime, I can confirm that we already publish on a quarterly basis data on levels of reoffending by disposal type, including custodial sentences, community orders and suspended sentence orders.

I hope that my answer assures the noble Lord, Lord Jackson, of our commitment to following the evidence, regarding his Amendment 93A. However, as I am sure he will appreciate, many factors go into whether someone reoffends, and creating artificial targets will not support hard-working front-line staff in trying to improve the system.

I thank the noble Lord for Amendment 127 but, although we share the aim of improving transparency in the parole system, the Government believe that this proposal is unnecessary. Public hearings were introduced in 2022, allowing any hearing to be held in public where the chair considers it in the interests of justice. This amendment would reverse the current position, making public hearings the default and requiring the Parole Board to seek the agreement of the Secretary of State to hear a case in private. This would undermine the board’s quasi-judicial independence and create significant administrative burdens. It would also require victims’ views about the prospect of a public hearing to be sought in every case. This risks retraumatising victims and burdening them with an additional and unnecessary decision about their case. There is no evidence that a demand for all hearings to be public exists, so the amendment would not offer any meaningful benefits over the current process. The board holds more than 8,000 oral hearings annually, yet its website reports just 55 decisions on applications for a public hearing since 2022.

On Amendment 86, this Government remain committed to improving the collection and publication of data on foreign national offenders. We are working closely with colleagues in the Home Office to enable the early identification of foreign national offenders, which will support earlier removals. This may require a new mechanism to verify the information provided. As the noble and learned Lord, Lord Burnett, set out, this must be cost effective and must prevent placing additional pressure on operational staff; that is why we are exploring both operational and technological solutions. For this reason, we cannot accept a statutory duty to publish this information before the necessary infrastructure is in place to support it.

I am grateful to the noble Baroness, Lady Neville-Rolfe, for her kind words and for raising the important issue of participation in rehabilitative activities such as work or training; I am pleased that we have had an opportunity to debate this today and to learn more about the history of “purposeful”. We fully share the ambition behind this amendment, which is to ensure that time in custody is used productively both to support rehabilitation and to reduce reoffending. Prison should not simply be where criminals stay between crimes. I want to make it clear that this Government are of course committed to improving regimes across the prison estate, but making participation a mandatory condition across every custodial sentence would be impractical and, in some cases, counterproductive. Prison regimes vary widely to meet the needs of different populations, and imposing a blanket statutory requirement risks creating obligations that cannot be met.

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[Baroness Fox of Buckley (Non-Afl)]

My Lords, unlike the noble Lord, Lord Sanderson, I have more qualms about these particular prohibitions, broadly from a civil liberties point of view. The problem with the idea of bringing in endless surveillance and state bodies to keep their eye on people, banning people and prohibiting people on the basis that this is necessary because it will allow people to avoid prison is that it turns the community into something with prison-like conditions. I do not feel easy with that in terms of there being a ban on public events and entering drinking establishments, with new restriction zones and so on.

Where I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Sanderson, is on how on earth it will work, practically. How will probation cope with monitoring these prohibitions? I cannot understand how it would be feasible. We keep discussing the problem of probation not having enough resources and we are then assured that more resources will be made available; we are now asking probation to do even more than they were doing before. Resources always implies money, but this is about a lot more than money. I would have thought that a lot of the new things that this Bill is asking probation officers to do will require a lot more training.

The Minister will know that, for example, because of the huge case loads that probation officers have, the last thing that they want to be dealing with are IPP prisoners, who are at the very least challenging. We know that, in many instances, in order to get them off the books, they adopt a risk-averse attitude, which means that anyone who even just technically breaks a licence condition—maybe they are a late for a meeting, or something like that—suddenly gets recalled into prison. So there are all sorts of complications around saying simply that probation will do it.

I know that when I raise problems with probation, immediately there is a rush with people saying how brilliant probation officers are; this is not a slight on them as individuals but a problem with the service. In fact, if anything, it is probation officers themselves who feel frustrated and are tearing their hair out because they are expected to do so much with so little. There is a real reason why there is a difficulty in recruiting new trainee probation officers and where there are insufficient staff numbers.

What I do not understand is how we would monitor this. Let us say that there is, for example, a prohibition on going to the pub or a drinking establishment—I cannot remember what they are called now. Are probation officers going to be standing outside the pub? How will they know whether someone is entering a pub or not? That is why I think that the amendments in this group are quite useful. Is this just a box-ticking exercise? If it is a practical thing, someone will have to let the drinking establishments know and monitor whether anyone goes into them. I also think that there is a whole paraphernalia, and there are potentially quite difficult issues when restriction zones are put in place. Who decides where they are and what they are based on, and who is going to monitor them?

There is a wide range of new restrictions and prohibitions that are only being put in place because of the move to remove people from prison. Community probation officers do not have the resources; this will be not just technically bureaucratic to enact, but it will not keep the public safe or enable them to keep an eye on efficacy. Consequently, I would like to tighten up the whole notion of these orders via amendments such as these, but I am not even convinced that they are the way to go or that they are anything other than a problematic example of why there is a prior problem of letting everybody out of prison too early when you do not have the resources in the community.

[Lord Timpson (Lab)]

My Lords, one of the three key principles behind David Gauke’s Independent Sentencing Review was to expand and make greater use of punishments outside prison. The new community requirements introduced by Clauses 13 to 16 are designed to implement that principle. They are intended to give the courts a wider range of options to punish offenders in the community, from stopping them from going to watch their favourite football team to imposing a restriction zone that requires them to stay within a particular area.

The amendment proposed by the noble and learned Lord, Lord Keen, and the noble Lord, Lord Sandhurst, has quite rightly raised questions about how these are to be enforced and monitored. Their amendments would prevent the court from imposing these requirements if there are not arrangements for enforcement in place or the court did not believe they can be enforced, and they seek to ensure that the relevant authority supervises requirements imposed by the court.

I hope that it will help noble Lords if I begin by explaining how these orders will be monitored and enforced. It is very important to remember that community and suspended sentence orders are already a well-established part of the justice system. This Bill simply expands the range of options available to judges when they pass a sentence.

As with all current community requirements, probation staff will monitor an offender’s compliance with their order; they use a range of tools to do that, such as intelligence from partners, including the police. This includes electronic monitoring, where appropriate, and probation staff are already skilled in using these tools to enforce community orders. If probation staff learn about non-compliance, they have a range of options. They can return the offender to court, which can result in even more onerous requirements; they can impose a fine; and, in more serious cases, they can even send the offender to custody.

I hope that an example will help to illustrate this. Let us imagine that Harry, an ardent supporter of Sheffield United Football Club, is banned from attending football matches under one of the new community requirements. To enforce this order, the court has ordered that he must wear an electronic tag. Harry breaches his community order by going to a game. His probation officer learns about this from the data from his tag. In other circumstances, a breach may be identified through intelligence sharing between agencies. They decide that the breach is serious enough to return Harry to court, where he receives a further fine.

In short, these new requirements will be enforced by probation staff who are skilled and experienced in enforcing similar requirements. This Government are making sure that the Probation Service has the capacity to do this vital job and keep the public safe through recruitment, increased funding and investing in technology, including even more alcohol tags. The noble Baroness, Lady Hamwee, referred to a new sort of alcohol test, which I am unaware of but sounds interesting. I also emphasise that the Bill does not require the courts to use these requirements. Critically, the court must determine that any requirements imposed are the most suitable for achieving the purposes of sentencing. For all the reasons I have set out, the Government’s view is that these amendments are not necessary.

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[Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb (GP)]

Before the noble Lord sits down, he mentioned alcolocks. It is a system of measuring one’s breath, and if one is deemed to have drunk it stops the car ignition. It has worked very successfully in other countries.

[Lord Timpson (Lab)]

I thank the noble Baroness. That is very interesting, and I will take it back to the department.

[Lord Sandhurst (Con)]

My Lords, I am grateful for the explanation given by the Minister, but the issues at stake here are not theoretical; they are practical questions about how these conditions will actually work. Will they be real, meaningful and enforceable? The Government have repeatedly asserted confidence in suspended sentences and the expanded use of community-based requirements. If that confidence is well placed, these amendments should be entirely uncontroversial; they do nothing more than ensure that what is ordered by a judge can be delivered in reality.

We are not seeking to impose obligations to enforce on the licensee of a public house, for example, but they should know so that they are then free to pass the information on to the police or the Probation Service, because they will not want someone there who is the subject of an order. It will be a public house order, for example, because the offender has a particular issue with behaviour in such places—so too with football grounds or other specified events. The host, if that is the right word, should be informed and should know that a particular individual, if recognised, should not be on his premises and can be turned away.

The noble Baroness, Lady Fox, with her usual acuity, pointed to the civil liberty aspects of this as well. I will not embark on those, but she also identified practical and policy issues underlying these provisions in Clauses 13 to 16. We on these Benches suggest that these amendments insert a simple and reasonable test. They do not impose a condition unless compliance can realistically be monitored in practice by the Probation Service, and the Probation Service will need help from the hosts. It is not radical to say that orders issued by a court should carry weight. A prohibition that in practice cannot and will not be checked is not a deterrent. A restriction that cannot and will not be enforced is not a restriction. Without these safeguards, we will create orders that are performative rather than protective. They will offer only the illusion of safety to communities and to victims.

The Government themselves use this precise standard when justifying reforms elsewhere in the Bill—for example, removing rehabilitative activity days because the system “did not operate effectively in practice”. The provisions in Clauses 13 to 16, if they are to be enforced, must be enforceable in practice and must be effective. If a condition is imposed but nobody has a duty to enforce it, it is not a condition at all. The Probation Service is not going to have time to run around the pubs, football grounds and so on; it is going to have to rely on information from other people.

These amendments would simply ensure that the supervising authority has responsibility for enforcement and is given the means to do so, rather than the vague hope that somebody may intervene if they happen to notice a breach. Without this duty, we repeat here that the failures seen with criminal behaviour orders and football banning orders, where thousands of breaches each year go unpursued and offenders learn that compliance is optional, will be repeated. Public confidence will not be restored by rhetoric; in fact, it will be damaged. It will be damaged by visible consequences, namely failures to enforce.

The Government propose to release more offenders into the community under suspended and community-based regimes. That is a political choice. Having chosen that path, they must choose the responsibility to ensure that it works and that it is safe. We should not be asking the British Government to accept greater risk while refusing the safeguards that would mitigate that risk. Ministers who believe that this strategy will reduce reoffending should have no objection to tests of practicability, enforcement duties and notification requirements. To oppose these amendments, they must be justified as to why they will be unenforceable, unmonitored, unaccountable conditions. That is a hard case to make to the victims, to police officers on the street or to the public whose safety is being traded away.

The amendments we put forward are not obstructive but supportive. They would help, indeed allow, the Government’s policy to function in the real world, not just on the printed page. If we are to put offenders back in the community who might not otherwise have been there—indeed, probably would not have been—the very least we owe the public is confidence that these conditions will be monitored and enforced, so I urge the Government to look again at these amendments and to reflect. For now, I beg leave to withdraw.

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[Baroness Fox of Buckley (Non-Afl)]

I will join the trend. I apologise to the noble Lord, Lord Sandhurst, for calling him “Lord Sanderson” in my enthusiasm to agree with him. Misnaming is almost as bad as misgendering, but I hope he will let me off. I was glad to take credit for the very important points made by the noble Lord, Lord Foster, about electronic tagging, because I agree with him.

I want to query the Minister now, rather than interrupting him later, about this group. There is something I do not understand. The group is focused largely on enforceability, yet in the previous group, the Minister claimed that these kinds of prohibitions were part of the punishment. He is right to suggest that these are punishments for those people—they are not in prison, but they are still being punished. But I do not find it easy to understand how these orders punish the individuals. Are they related to the crimes they committed? The example that the Minister gave earlier was that, as part of the punishment, someone will be prevented from going to a particular football match. I understand that, if someone supports Liverpool, it might be a punishment to watch them at the moment, never mind anything else.

How do the punishments get decided? There was the example that the noble Lord, Lord Foster, gave of the potential downside of saying that we will have a curfew and someone cannot attend their Gamblers Anonymous meeting. Also, if we are going to say that, as part of the punishment, someone cannot go to public gatherings, who decides which public gatherings are included? Some public gatherings are obviously morally good for people. Do we not want them to go to a political public gathering?

Can the Minister just clarify how it is decided which person in the community gets one of these orders and who makes a decision about who should be banned from a pub, football match, public gathering, political gathering or what have you?

[Lord Timpson (Lab)]

My Lords, I thank the noble Baronesses, Lady Hamwee and Lady Prashar, and the noble Lords, Lord Marks, Lord Foster and Lord Jackson, for tabling these amendments.

Amendments 60, 61 and 66 refer to the enforcement of the new community requirements. I hope that the noble Baroness and noble Lord will be satisfied with a summary of the answer I gave in the previous group: responsibility for enforcement sits with the Probation Service, which has a range of options available to respond to non-compliance. This includes returning the offender to court, where they may face further penalties. This can include being sent to custody.

The noble Baroness asked how this works in practice, and I hope I can assist. Where electronic monitoring is imposed, the electronic monitoring service provider will receive an automatic breach notification if the offender breaches a licence condition predetermined by a court or probation officer. They will then provide information on the breach to the individual’s probation officer by 10 o’clock the following morning, for them then to take the appropriate action. If the noble Baroness would like further clarification and to speak to the experts whom I work alongside, I would be very happy to arrange that.

Amendments 102 and 104, tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Jackson, concern the enforcement of new licence conditions. As with the new community order requirements, the enforcement of licence conditions will mirror current practice. Where it is supervising offenders, the Probation Service will monitor offenders’ behaviour and any potential breach of licence conditions. It will have available to it a suite of options to respond to the breaches, including issuing a warning and increasing supervision; where needed, it also includes recall to custody.

Again, I hope that an example will assist your Lordships. Lucy has recently been released from prison after serving a custodial sentence after seriously assaulting someone in a pub. Her licence condition includes a ban on entering any drinking establishment. After several weeks, Lucy admits to her probation officer that she has frequently been going to pubs and clubs. Even though she has not been arrested, her probation officer decides that more intensive supervision is needed to manage her risk, and puts this in place.

As with community orders, where an offender is on licence, there is no expectation for businesses or venues to manage these conditions. As the noble Viscount, Lord Hailsham, rightly pointed out, imagine a probation officer, already under pressure, having to notify every pub, bar and venue within 20 miles that certain offenders cannot go there. Imagine businesses having to store securely, monitor and update this information and, by implication, having to be responsible for enforcing these conditions. This is not for venues or people in the community to manage, and it will not help offenders integrate back into their communities. The Probation Service will continue its management and supervision of these offenders; it is best placed to respond to any breaches, including recalling offenders to prison if necessary.

However, we must be clear: we cannot monitor every offender in every moment of every day, and nor should we. Complying with licence conditions is an important way in which offenders can show a reduction in their risk as they reintegrate into their communities. It is how they can rebuild the trust they have lost by committing crimes. The punishment correlates to offending behaviour and the decision of the sentencer who takes into account the nature of the offence.

I hope that this reassures noble Lords and noble Baronesses that these measures will provide our Probation Service with a full suite of options to support it in managing offenders in the community—a task it is best equipped to do. Of course, we are also supporting the Probation Service with more funding, more recruitment and better tools to help it do what it does best: keeping the public safe. We therefore believe that these amendments are unnecessary, and I urge noble Lords to withdraw or not press them.

[Lord Jackson of Peterborough (Con)]

With all due respect to the Minister, that is not a great example, because the example he gives is that Lucy has volunteered the information that she is in breach of her licence conditions. Given that the licence conditions are a de facto replacement for potential custodial centres, had she not told the probation officer, she would still have been in breach of the licence conditions as she was still going to the pub. I do not really think that that is a great example, with all due respect to the Minister.

[Lord Timpson (Lab)]

I am happy to provide further examples if that would be helpful but it may be that the tag, if Lucy had had one on, would have been used by the monitoring team to identify where she had or had not been.

I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Hamwee, and the noble Lord, Lord Marks, for Amendment 106, which would allow for exemptions to restriction zone conditions. I am proud to be a Minister in the Government who introduced this measure. These zones will pin certain offenders down to a specific geographical area to ensure that victims can move freely everywhere else. I must pay tribute to those who campaigned tirelessly for this crucial change, including Diana Parkes and Hetti Barkworth-Nanton.

I hope that it will help your Lordships if I explain in a little more detail how the process of drawing a restriction zone will work. Where a restriction zone is deemed necessary and proportionate to manage risk, probation officers will conduct a detailed risk assessment. They will work closely with victim liaison officers, to ensure that victims have been given the chance to make representations where appropriate, but they must also ensure that offenders can access all necessary services, including employment, with consideration of public protection and risk. They must not be a barrier to employment or prevent rehabilitation; as someone who has championed the employment of ex-offenders for years, noble Lords will know that this is the last thing I would want to happen.

On a recent visit to the Serco office in Warrington, I saw at first hand how exclusion zones are designed. I saw the detailed consideration and care that is given when developing them; I will ensure that the same level of attention is given to restriction zones when those are being drawn, with due consideration given to the needs of both the victim and the offender. Let us be clear: these considerations are inextricably linked. Supporting offenders to rehabilitate and stopping the cycling of reoffending are vital parts of ensuring that restriction zones protect victims. Restriction zones, like all restrictive measures, must accommodate rehabilitative aims, such as employment; that way, we will better protect not just a single victim but all victims.

Amendment 101A from the noble Baroness, Lady Prashar, would give the Parole Board oversight of restriction zones. Although I thank the noble Baroness for raising this matter, my firm view is that, as I have set out throughout this speech, the Probation Service is best placed to monitor and request licence conditions; and that the judiciary is best placed to hand out orders.

The Parole Board is best placed to develop risk management plans on release for indeterminate sentence offenders and more serious determinate sentence offenders whose release it directs. It is not for it to do so in cases where offenders are subject to automatic release. If an offender is released automatically without any involvement of the Parole Board, it would be inappropriate for the board then to be asked to approve a restriction zone for an offender whose release it did not direct; it would have no knowledge of the individual and their case. As with current provisions, it is right that the Probation Service will manage the licence for these cases. It is the one who know the offender and the risk they pose best.

I thank the noble Lord, Lord Foster, for his Amendment 110ZA. I agree that it is important to ensure that electronic monitoring is imposed where it is proportionate and necessary to do so. When an electronic monitoring condition is being considered following an individual’s release from custody, the Probation Service will carry out an extensive assessment of that individual’s circumstances to ensure that electronic monitoring is used appropriately as part of its wider supervision. Conducting these assessments via the professional judgment of our Probation Service remains a core principle to ensuring that electronic monitoring is used only where it is proportionate and necessary. I have full confidence in the checks and decisions taken by the Probation Service, and I have confidence in the technology that is used to enforce any electronic monitoring requirement. I can assure the noble Lord that the electronic monitoring suitability checks currently in place and carried out by the Probation Service are robust; they ensure that the imposition of electronic monitoring will not result in harm to victims or perpetrators.

We are confident that probation officers will continue to impose electronic monitoring where it is proportionate and necessary to do so. I urge the noble Baroness to withdraw her amendment.

[Baroness Hamwee (LD)]

My Lords, this is one of those occasions when scrutiny is important to both the proponents and opponents of a proposition. Some of us want to make sure that it works; others want to show that it will not. I hope that the Minister will understand that, certainly from these Benches, we are seeking not to oppose what he is planning but to understand how it will work. To me, identifying where there is a breach is the big question mark. I enthusiastically accept his suggestion that we can have further briefings; although I never like doing things in private, those are a necessary step.

The noble Viscount criticised my drafting rather than the substance—at least, I hope that was the case. I know of the case of the lady whose wrists were too slim to take a tag. It was worse than that. She kept being told that she was in breach because it was understood that she was refusing to wear a tag, whereas she could not. There are a lot of situations that one cannot quite imagine until one discovers that they have actually happened.

I am sure that we will come back to this subject of enforcement. Having had a look at the relevant clause just now, I am relieved that these are not among the provisions that will commence immediately on the passing of the Act. I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.

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[Lord Keen of Elie (Con)]

My Lords, these amendments were tabled by me and my noble friend Lord Sandhurst.

As we have already seen, the Bill introduces new prohibition powers: prohibitions on attending public events, restrictions on entering drinking establishments, restriction zones limiting movement and electronic monitoring to enforce compliance. In principle this all sounds very sensible, but we must again ask the critical question: how will these powers work on the ground?

On the prohibitions with respect to drinking establishments, legally the offender must comply but enforcement is then shared. Probation must monitor and the police must act. In practice, this is far from straightforward. How will breaches be reliably detected? GPS or electronic monitoring may indicate proximity but cannot confirm entry. Reporting from licensees or police may be inconsistent. Once a breach is detected, how quickly can probation services respond and are resources sufficient to manage multiple offenders across wide areas? Without clarity, we cannot be confident that these powers will work.

That is precisely why Amendments 71 and 76 are tabled. They would require the Probation Service to record and publish breaches, repeat breaches and underlying offences. They also probe the reliability of electronic monitoring. Can GPS monitoring operate reliably in towns, cities and rural areas? Will probation teams receive training to know how and when to respond? As I have said before, we know that probation services are already stretched. Surely new powers that add a substantial responsibility to their workload have to be considered with care. We simply seek clarity as to how these services will be managed in these circumstances.

These amendments come from a place of reality, not of opposition. They affirm the Government’s policy while probing whether it can be delivered reliably. I look forward to the Minister’s response on how these powers will operate in practice. I beg to move.

[Lord Timpson (Lab)]

I thank the noble and learned Lord, Lord Keen, and the noble Lord, Lord Sandhurst, for their amendments. The new community requirements in Clauses 13 to 16 are vital reforms. I am glad that I have had the opportunity to speak to them in some detail today. Amendments 65, 71 and 75 seek to require HMPPS to publish the number of offenders who breach these requirements and to log what their associated offences were. While I am sympathetic to the intent behind this, we do not agree that it is necessary. The Ministry of Justice already publishes detailed sentence outcome statistics. These include the type of disposals handed out at court and are split by detailed offences and offender characteristic. We regularly assess the effectiveness of all community requirements.

Furthermore, HMPPS publishes a range of staffing and case load data on a quarterly basis. We must be conscious of adding more work into the service. We also place great value on the independent oversight and assurance provided by HM Inspectorate of Probation. It already inspects the service and provides insight into how it is performing. Given the information that is already available, we do not agree that adding a statutory requirement to publish this information is necessary or proportionate. But I assure the noble and learned Lord that I will keep an open mind. I will continue to review regularly what data is published, what can be stopped and what can be added.

Amendments 74 and 76 probe the use of electronic monitoring to enforce restriction zones as part of a community or suspended sentence order. I am grateful to the noble and learned Lord for tabling these amendments. With regard to Amendment 74, I can assure him that electronic monitoring will be imposed alongside these orders in the vast majority of cases. However, electronic monitoring is not appropriate in all cases. Some offenders have no fixed abode. They may live complex and chaotic lifestyles. Imposing an electronic monitoring requirement would likely set up these individuals to fail, instead of helping them to improve outcomes for victims, the public and the offender themselves. A court will be able to impose a restriction zone without electronic monitoring when it cannot obtain the consent of someone whose co-operation is required, such as the home owner, where the appropriate local arrangements are not in place to enable electronic monitoring, or where it would be inappropriate. It is right that the decision about what requirements to include as part of the sentence sits with the judiciary hearing the individual case.

If a court does not believe that a restriction zone will be effective without electronic monitoring, it has a range of other requirements at its disposal. When a requirement is not electronically monitored, the Probation Service will monitor offenders’ behaviour for any potential breach. It will have a suite of options available to respond to breaches if it identifies that they have not complied—for example, from police intelligence or victim concerns.

I will end by briefly turning to the question of how these are to be monitored in practice and the reliability of the technology that allows the Probation Service to do so. The use of electronic monitoring to enforce these requirements will mean that we receive retrospective data that provides clear evidence of an individual’s whereabouts. This ensures that those receiving a restriction zone are robustly monitored. GPS is a reliable technology that has been part of electronic monitoring since 2018. This will allow the Probation Service to assess whether someone has breached their restriction zone. As I have said before, if this happens, probation staff have a range of enforcement options at their disposal.

I thank the noble and learned Lord for the constructive discussions on these matters and hope that I have provided sufficient reassurance on the points raised. I therefore urge him to withdraw Amendment 65.

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[Lord Sandhurst (Con)]

My Lords, I thank the noble Lord, Lord Foster of Bath, for moving his amendment. Providing care for individuals with addictions, gambling in particular, should be a fundamental role of a national health service, and we support his aims.

As the noble Lord explained, gambling addiction is a chronic issue across this country. Roughly 2.8% of all adults are engaged in at-risk or problem gambling—a huge number of people either in need of, or at risk of needing, support services. His amendments highlight this issue and the need for our services properly to address gambling addiction.

We support the sentiment behind the approach to general addiction recovery services of the noble Lord, Lord Brooke of Alverthorpe. Often, individuals with addiction either cannot or do not want to accept recovery services. To introduce a requirement to engage with services would serve those people. This is particularly the case in prisons. Last year, there were almost 50,000 adults in recovery in alcohol and drug treatment centres in prison and secure settings. Almost 60% of those individuals were undergoing treatment for crack or opiates. That 60% comprises vulnerable individuals being treated for misuse of the hardest substances.

The principle behind Amendments 131 to 133, from the noble Lord, Lord Foster of Bath, clearly reflects the reality of the situation. We heard an interesting proposal from the noble Lord, which merits consideration. We also heard an interesting speech from the noble Lord, Lord Ponsonby of Shulbrede, who of course has great experience as a Minister in this field. We remain, however, not fully convinced that this group of amendments would have the desired effect.

There is a large question mark hovering over the whole Bill: the general enforceability of the new orders it introduces. We have explained that we do not agree with the decision to suspend sentences under 18 months—that is, 18 months because the Government have opposed our guilty plea amendment—but if the Government are to make this all work, the new orders they impose have to be effective. As I have said before, we are not convinced that they will be.

As I have already argued, the Government’s new drinking establishment entry prohibition requirement realistically is unenforceable. Public event attendance is too vague and too broad. The Government’s approach to new orders is largely deficient. We do not think they should be taking on new responsibilities, even if there is a need for them, as is the case with gambling addiction, when they have demonstrated an incapacity to plan for the existing responsibilities that are being imposed.

The onus, therefore, is on the Government to demonstrate that the noble Lord’s well-intentioned amendments can be accepted, if possible, and then implemented. We would like this to be the case, but only if possible. Gambling addiction and addiction in general require attention from our state, but the state must first prove itself competent. We look forward to hearing the Minister’s response.

[Lord Timpson (Lab)]

My Lords, I thank noble Lords for sharing their views and tabling these amendments, which raise important issues around tackling gambling harms and the harms caused by other addictions. Just last week I met a prisoner at HMP Wormwood Scrubs whose life have been devastated by gambling harm. Although the data on gambling is limited, I understand that this is an important issue impacting the lives of offenders and their families.

Amendments 70 and 78 would introduce new community order requirements: one prohibiting an offender from entering a gambling establishment, and one introducing a mandatory treatment requirement. I wholeheartedly share the commitment of the noble Lord, Lord Foster, to supporting offenders whose lives are impacted by gambling. I assure noble Lords that courts already have the power to prohibit offenders serving a community or suspended sentence from entering gambling premises. They can do this through a prohibited activity requirement.

However, I reassure the noble Lord that we will continue to keep the menu of community requirements under close review. Clause 17 introduces a power to add or amend community requirements using secondary legislation. This will provide further flexibility to ensure that the framework is kept relevant to the offending behaviour.

The amendments tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Foster, and my noble friend Lord Brooke, and supported by my noble friend Lord Ponsonby, speak to the wider issue of how the criminal justice system can support and treat those whose offending is driven by addiction or mental health needs. I know this issue is close to noble Lords’ hearts and I agree completely that alongside effective punishment we have a duty to rehabilitate offenders with gambling addictions and other needs. We must provide them with the right support throughout the criminal justice system to rebuild their lives. I hope it will help your Lordships for me to set out the ways in which we are already doing so.

Pre-sentence reports help the court identify underlying issues such as harmful gambling, mental ill-health and addiction, which may influence offending behaviour. Mental health conditions and addictions can be considered at sentencing where they are relevant to the offence or the offender’s culpability. Courts are encouraged to take an individualised approach, particularly where the condition contributes to someone’s offending. Where appropriate, courts may consider mental health treatment requirements, funded by NHS England as part of a community or suspended sentence order, where mental health has been identified as an underlying factor. The use of these requirements has increased significantly in recent years.

Alongside this, HMPPS delivers a broad range of rehabilitative interventions through probation, which can help address wider gambling-related harms. This includes support with thinking and behaviour, homelessness or unemployment. We also work closely with health partners to ensure that pathways to treatment and recovery services are accessible for offenders and aligned with prison and probation services. This includes increasing the use and effectiveness of mental health, alcohol and drug treatment requirements as part of community and suspended sentences.

For those in prison, there is already a statutory duty for prison governors to provide health services in custody, with our approach guided by the principle of equivalence of care to patients in the community. We are ensuring that prison leavers remain in treatment on release by strengthening links to prison, probation and treatment providers.

Finally, support for those with gambling-related harms in the criminal justice system will be bolstered by funding from the statutory gambling levy. The Government have committed to publishing an annual report on the progress of this. I will also reach out to representatives in the gambling industry and will look to host a round table with them next year to better understand the impacts of gambling harm and what more we can do.

The noble Lord, Lord Foster of Bath, also tabled Amendment 108, which would give new powers to set licence conditions prohibiting offenders from entering a gambling establishment. I want to be clear that the provisions in Clause 24 will support our aim to give practitioners a full range of tools to manage and support offenders. Existing powers enable probation to set additional licence conditions related to gambling, including prohibiting offenders on licence from gambling or making payments for other games of chance.

Probation also has an existing power to request an additional licence condition, directing offenders to undertake activities to address their gambling activities, where necessary and proportionate to their risk. HMPPS delivers a broad range of rehabilitative interventions through probation, which can help address wider gambling-related harms. We will be looking at issuing operational guidance to practitioners on effective usage of gambling-related licence conditions, alongside implementation of the new conditions set out in Clause 24. I would very much like to harness the considerable expertise of the noble Lord, Lord Foster, on this topic. I hope that he will be keen to work with me and my officials as this work develop0s.

Finally, I thank my noble friend Lord Bach for his Amendment 101. I reassure him that probation practitioners carefully consider what licence conditions to recommend as part of their supervision and management of an offender. They can tailor conditions to the specific needs of the offender, in line with managing public protection.

Although there is no formal process for representations, this is not considered to be necessary. Probation practitioners draw on a range of information when applying licence conditions and discuss conditions with offenders as part of release planning. They must ensure that licence conditions are necessary and proportionate, and they can grant necessary exemptions to licence conditions for rehabilitative purposes. This will be the same for the new conditions.

I repeat my thanks to noble Lords for allowing the Committee to debate these important subjects, but I hope I have explained why the Government do not agree that these amendments are necessary. I urge the noble Lord to withdraw his amendment.

[Lord Foster of Bath (LD)]

My Lords, I begin by thanking the noble Lord, Lord Sandhurst, for agreeing, in principle at least, with the amendments and rightly saying that he wants them accepted and implemented, but only when he can be convinced that they can be enforced. In so doing, he draws attention to the well-known problem of the shortage of support, even at present. For example, of those who are identified as having a mental health problem when they enter prison, only 1.8% actually even start treatment. He is quite right that we have to do much more. The noble Lord, Lord Brooke, also pointed that out. We must do much more about the provision of support.

The Minister also described this as a serious problem. He is quite right, because the percentage of people in prison who suffer from a gambling disorder is many times greater than in the population at large. The amount of gambling that goes on in prison is now very well documented and, sadly, on occasion involves prison officers.

The one disappointing thing in the Minister’s response is that he seemed to believe that it is still perfectly all right to separate out from mental health the two issues of drugs and alcohol but not even to include the words “gambling disorder” in the list, the assessment procedure and so on. I hope I can persuade him, in the discussions he is obviously keen to have—I am keen to have them as well—that we can find a way forward. I am very keen indeed to ensure that those words are included in the relevant documentation. Having said that, for the time being, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.

Sentencing Bill

Lord Timpson Excerpts

Committee stage
Monday 1st December 2025 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Porter of Fulwood (Con)]

My Lords, I welcome Amendment 148A. The Bill will shape the ecosystems of support that underpin and surround our entire justice system. A recurring theme through Second Reading and Committee so far has been the question of resourcing. While the focus of these discussions has been largely around the Probation Service itself, we cannot ignore the 1,700 community and voluntary organisations that work in this area, both inside and outside prisons.

We know that there are many aspects where community and voluntary organisations excel. There are some dimensions, the evidence shows, where they provide better than private companies or the public sector. They build social capital, enable trust and often have an understanding of vital contextual points related to specific communities or issues. I am sure any of us who have spent any substantial time volunteering and working closely with people in very vulnerable situations understand this dynamic.

In general, this sector in the UK is facing challenges on many fronts. The rise in national insurance, corporate giving stalling and increasing overheads across the board, combined with growing demand, are all contributing to what the National Council for Voluntary Organisations refers to as the year of the “big squeeze”. Clinks’ State of the Sector 2024 report makes for sobering reading, and that is the situation as things stand. If the vision that sits behind the Bill is to stand any chance of success, not only do we need to find a way to support and shore up the existing voluntary and community sector but we need to prioritise expanding its capacity and growing it.

That is more straightforward than it sounds. There is a remarkable level of agreement across organisations such as the Charities Aid Foundation, the Centre for Social Justice, Clinks and the National Council for Voluntary Organisations, to name a few, about the kinds of policies that are needed. A lot of these are to do with processes: simplifying, contracting, commissioning locally and more collaboratively, introducing contract indexation and protecting local specialist funding. Others are about finding ways of attracting more private and corporate donations into the sector; for example, making changes to gift aid and introducing matched funding. Others, as the Lords Justice and Home Affairs Committee report Better Prisons: Less Crime highlighted, are practical points about how HMPPS and individual prisons can co-ordinate better with the third sector.

This amendment by itself is not an answer, but it is a prerequisite for bringing the level of transparency and accountability that is needed into this system. This provides a powerful opportunity, if used correctly. We need to understand in more detail the plan for addressing the impact of the Bill by requiring a formal report on its impact and on the capacity of the voluntary and community sector to meet any increased demand. This amendment will build accountability into the system.

If we fail to monitor the effects of this legislation on the very organisations that underpin rehabilitation and community safety, we risk creating new pressures in the system. By amending the Bill to provide for this assessment, the Government have the opportunity to send a clear signal here, demonstrating that they believe that policy should be informed by data and that the community and voluntary sector is a valued partner. This amendment would strengthen oversight, support the sector and ensure that the promises of the Bill are matched by the capacity of the community to deliver them.

[The Minister of State, Ministry of Justice (Lord Timpson) (Lab)]

My Lords, I thank the noble Lord and the noble and learned Lord for the opportunity to discuss these important issues. I appreciate that these amendments seek to improve transparency and public understanding of the criminal justice system, and this Government agree wholeheartedly on the importance of open justice. However, we do not consider that these amendments are necessary to achieve that aim.

I turn first to Amendment 84. I reassure noble Lords that the Government are taking action to increase the openness and transparency of the system. In certain cases of high public interest, sentencing remarks are already published online, and sentencing remarks can also be filmed by broadcasters, subject to the agreement of the judge. The sentencing of Thomas Cashman for the appalling murder of Olivia Pratt-Korbel was one such example. The Government have recently extended provision of free transcripts of sentencing remarks to victims of rape and other sexual offences whose cases are heard in the Crown Court, and it remains the case that bereaved families of victims of murder, manslaughter and fatal road offences can request judges’ sentencing remarks for free. We are also actively exploring opportunities offered by AI to reduce the costs of producing transcripts in future and to make transcripts across the system more accessible. But this amendment introducing this additional provision of court transcripts would place a significant financial burden on the courts and divert resources away from where they are needed most in the wider system.

The release of any court transcript requires judicial oversight to ensure accuracy and adherence to any reporting restrictions and to make sure that other public interest factors have been considered. This amendment would therefore have significant operational and resource implications for HMCTS and the judiciary. It would place extra demands on judicial capacity in the Crown Court and on HMCTS at a time when the system is under immense pressure, so while we agree entirely on the importance of transparency within the justice system, we cannot accept the amendment at this time. However, I reassure noble Lords that we will continue to consider this closely. In particular, I want to explore what opportunities AI presents to improve transcriptions and data. I am sure that noble Lords agree that the potential is there and that we need to find the best way to harness it. I will write to the noble Baroness, Lady Hamwee, on the point around data and accuracy.

I turn to Amendment 85. Again, we agree with the principle of improving transparency but not with the necessity of the amendment itself. This Government are committed to improving the collection and publication of data on foreign national offenders. The Ministry of Justice has already taken action to increase transparency on the data published. Notably, in July, for the first time the offender management statistics included a breakdown of foreign national offenders in prison by sex and offence group. We are also working closely with colleagues in the Home Office to establish earlier identification of foreign national offenders. Being able to verify the nationality of offenders ahead of sentencing will facilitate more timely removals and may also provide an opportunity for enhanced data collection. We will keep this under review as part of our ongoing work to strengthen the data collection and publication system that we inherited from the previous Government.

Implementation of these measures may require a new mechanism to verify the information provided, which must be cost effective and prevent placing additional pressure on operational staff. For this reason, we cannot accept a statutory duty to publish this information before the necessary infrastructure is in place to support it. Our measured approach will continue to support the return of more foreign national offenders while ensuring maximum transparency for the public.

I am grateful to the noble Lord and the noble and learned Lord for Amendment 148A concerning measuring the impact of the Bill on the voluntary and community sectors. I also thank the noble Baroness, Lady Porter of Fulwood, who has championed this subject during the Bill’s passage. She made a thoughtful and impassioned contribution at Second Reading and in today’s debate. The voluntary and community sector plays a vital role in developing and delivering services to people in our care. The sector supports HMPPS and the MoJ by bridging gaps and providing continuity that reduces reoffending and drives rehabilitation through targeted specialist support. Many of the services we provide would not be possible without the vital contribution of the voluntary sector, including charities such as Women in Prison, the St Giles Trust, PACT and many others. The Independent Sentencing Review made recommendations for where the third sector can be utilised to support the Probation Service and offenders on community sentences or on licence.

We already work closely with third-sector organisations to deliver better outcomes in the criminal justice system. For example, we work in partnership with the charity Clinks through the HMPPS and MoJ infrastructure grant to engage a network of around 1,500 organisations. In collaboration with Clinks, we have convened a series of roundtables with voluntary and community sector representatives and policy colleagues to explore the review’s recommendations and how the sector can make the greatest contribution to probation capacity.

I have carefully considered Amendment 148A. However, it will not be possible to fully understand the impact within 12 months, nor based just on data from the first six months of the Act being in force. Implementation of the Bill’s provisions will be phased over time and closely linked to the outcomes of the Leveson review and its implementation. In addition, the sector’s experience will be influenced by the introduction of new commissioned rehabilitative services contracts. Measuring the impact within such a short timeframe amid these overlapping and confounding factors would be highly complex. But again, I want to explore the opportunities that AI presents to collect and use better data in future. I can assure noble Lords that we will continue to work closely with the sector to ensure that it is considered and utilised in the implementation of this Bill.

[Lord Keen of Elie (Con)]

My Lords, I am grateful to all noble Lords who have spoken on this group. Their contributions have underscored the wide recognition across this Committee that transparency, accountability and evidence must underpin any credible approach to sentencing reform. These amendments do not seek to frustrate the Bill in any way; they seek to ensure that its objectives can be properly understood, monitored and delivered. Regarding Amendment 84, we have heard throughout this debate the importance of public confidence in the criminal justice system, and confidence cannot exist without visibility.

On Amendment 85, I once again make the simple point that you cannot manage what you do not measure. With respect to Amendment 148A, I too acknowledge the contribution made by the noble Baroness, Lady Porter; her thoughtful and insightful contribution reflected her long-standing experience and interest in this issue. At this time, I withdraw the amendment, but I give notice to the Minister that we will return to this issue at a later point in the process of the Bill.

Sentencing Bill

Lord Timpson Excerpts

Committee stage
Wednesday 26th November 2025 Lords Chamber

[Lord Keen of Elie (Con)]

My Lords, I speak briefly to Amendment 46 in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Hamwee. As I read it, the amendment seeks to treat domestic abuse as an aggravating factor when determining all sentencing. Of course domestic abuse is a serious pervasive crime and it clearly has profound long-term impacts on its victims. This amendment appears to promote some degree of clarity and consistency, and, indeed, fairness in sentencing. It would ensure that the courts can take full account of both the nature and the impact of domestic abuse when deciding on an appropriate sentence. I look forward to hearing the Minister’s views on it.

[The Minister of State, Ministry of Justice (Lord Timpson) (Lab)]

I am grateful to the noble Baroness, Lady Hamwee, and the noble Lord, Lord Marks, for drawing attention to this important topic. They, along with their colleagues in the other place, have campaigned tirelessly on this issue.

I want to reassure the noble Baroness that we believe that this will improve the quality of data. The amendment we are debating today would require sentencing guidelines to provide that domestic abuse is an aggravating factor in sentencing. I fully appreciate the intent behind the amendment, and the Government wholeheartedly agree that judges should consider domestic abuse when sentencing, but I hope I can reassure the noble Baroness that this is already the position and explain why the Government do not consider a further amendment necessary.

Domestic abuse is already treated as an aggravating factor through the Sentencing Council’s guidelines. Courts are required by law to follow this, unless it would not be in the interests of justice to do so. The Sentencing Council has looked carefully at this issue and has issued an overarching guideline on domestic abuse. That guideline makes it clear that the presence of domestic abuse can make an offence more serious. In addition, a wide range of offence-specific guidelines include

“an offence committed within a domestic abuse context”

as a specific aggregating factor.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Timpson (Lab)]

My Lords, I am extremely grateful to the noble and learned Lord, Lord Keen, for raising this matter. I pay tribute to Helen Grant MP and her constituent, Paula Hudgell. They have campaigned tirelessly and movingly on this important issue. Earlier this week, the Deputy Prime Minister had the great honour of meeting Paula and Helen to hear the Hudgells’ story and learn more about their campaign. This Government are taking decisive action to protect our children from those who would commit abhorrent crimes against them.

Currently, under Sarah’s law, the police can and do proactively disclose information regarding offenders to members of the public when they believe that a child is at risk of serious harm. For example, if the police become aware of an adult who has ever had a conviction, caution or charge for child abuse having unsupervised access to a child, the police can and will disclose this to the person best able to protect that child—usually their parent, carer or guardian. Sarah’s law also enables members of the public to make an application to the police for this information if they are worried about child protection.

In the Crime and Policing Bill, this Government are going further. We are strengthening Sarah’s law by placing it on a statutory footing. The clauses in that Bill will mean that chief police officers will have a statutory duty to follow the Secretary of State’s guidance on Sarah’s law. In practice, this will reinforce the police’s responsibility to make disclosures whenever that is necessary to protect children. We have also committed over £2 billion to support the roll out of the families first partnership programme to improve the early identification of risks to children and to take appropriate action.

The Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill will establish multi-agency child protection teams in every area. Additionally, we are placing a new duty on safeguarding partners to include education and childcare settings in their multi-agency safeguarding arrangements. We want to ensure that every opportunity is taken to keep our children safe. We are not standing still on this issue. We are exploring the best way to close the gap that Paula has rightly identified. This is why I and Ministers in the Home Office have instructed our officials to explore options for tracking offenders and offences involving child cruelty. I ask the noble and learned Lord to withdraw this amendment.

[Lord Keen of Elie (Con)]

I thank the Minister. In the light of his undertaking that the Government are pursuing this matter—vigorously, I take it—and intending to produce something, whether they term it a register or otherwise, so that the police can not only disclose information but access information, which is a more critical element here, at this point I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Beith (LD)]

My Lords, the noble and learned Lord, Lord Keen of Elie, has raised an interesting and very debatable question, which is what the role of the judiciary should be in allotting rehabilitation time and activity and what the role of the probation officer can reasonably be. In theory, I should be with him, because I am always anxious to protect the independence and autonomy of the judiciary, but I look at our court system, and what is feasible, and I look at the detailed work that would be necessary, which probation officers are trained and equipped for—not necessarily resources-equipped but equipped in terms of their training—and I am unconvinced that it would be a good idea to move away from what Clause 11 and 12 do towards a larger role for the judiciary.

I say that having gone, decades ago, to look at the court system in Texas, as the Minister himself has done more recently, and having seen proactive courts, with the judge handing out details of rehabilitation requirements and looking at people as individuals, and the applause ringing around the court when the judge commended the offender who had fulfilled the requirement, and the sight of one offender who had not fulfilled the requirement being taken away by the state marshal.

The whole set-up was very interesting, but very difficult to graft into our system without enlarging the judiciary substantially, giving it time to do this kind of thing. We are probably better to build on the foundation of the Probation Service, despite the fact that it went through such a terrible time with the privatisation process and is still well below the level it needs to be in terms of numbers and training. The Bill provides a more reliable route, even though my instinct is to be on the side of protecting the autonomy of the judiciary. This is a job that probation officers are probably in a better position to do than our hard-pressed judiciary.

[Lord Timpson (Lab)]

I have considered the amendments and thoughtful debate from the noble and learned Lord, Lord Keen, on this topic. Change is needed. The process evaluation of the rehabilitative activity requirement, or, as I prefer to call it, RAR days, published in May 2025, shows that the RAR is not working effectively. Offenders often do not understand what is expected of them, and magistrates sometimes sentence it as a catch-all.

Further to this published evidence, probation practitioners from Manchester to the Isle of Wight have told me personally that the way RAR is structured restricts their ability to rehabilitate offenders. From my experience of leading organisations, the people who are on the front line often give you the wisest advice. We value and trust our probation staff enormously. Their work is often unseen, but I deeply appreciate it. This change places professional judgment back at the heart of probation. We are enabling probation practitioners to utilise their professional expertise to ensure that rehabilitation is tailored to what works.

I reassure the noble and learned Lord, Lord Keen, that this change does not remove the court’s sentencing powers. It is and will remain for the court to determine whether to include this requirement when making an order. But the removal of court-specified maximum days will ensure that probation resources are directed to where they will have the most impact. It brings our approach to rehabilitation activity in line with how supervision is determined. Both are led by a thorough assessment of risk and need after sentencing. This does not change the fact that offenders are required to comply with the instructions of their probation officer. If they do not comply, they could face a return to court and receive tougher penalties.

I turn to the noble and learned Lord’s Amendments 125 and 126. The community sentences incentive scheme, set out in Clauses 36 and 37, already requires offenders to complete all court-ordered requirements before the community order—or, in the case of a suspended sentence order, the supervision period—can come to an end. This will include completing all the required activities under the new probation requirement. These clauses bring a principle of progression and incentivisation into community sentences to encourage good behaviour and motivate offenders to change.

This scheme was inspired by the model in Texas, which used incentives to reduce the prison population. It will mean that the Probation Service can encourage offenders to engage early, comply with their sentence requirements and complete rehabilitation work. This will free up staff time to focus on more serious and complex offenders in order to better protect the public and reduce reoffending. Probation practitioners will be responsible for determining the amount of rehabilitation activity that must be completed under the probation requirement. The measure requires them to complete it all before the community order or supervision period can be eligible for early termination.